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Columbia CtmtoerjSitp 

STUDIES IN CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY 



RELIGIOUS CULTS 
ASSOCIATED WITH THE AMAZONS 



COLUMBIA 
UNIVERSITY PRESS 
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KELIGIOUS CULTS 
ASSOCIATED WITH THE AMAZONS 



r 

BY 

FLORENCE MARY BENNETT, Ph.D. 




JQeto pork 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1912 



Copyright, 1912 
By Columbia University Press 

Printed from type, July, 1912 



Press of 
The New Era Printing Company 
Lancaster, pa. 



&CLA3194D8 



This monograph has been approved by the Department 
of Classical Philology as a contribution to knowledge worthy 
of publication. 

Clarence M. Young, 

Chairman. 



TO 

Professor and Mrs. Clarence Hoffman Young 



CONTENTS 



HAPTER 

I. The Amazons in Greek Legend 1 

II. The Gkeat Mother 17 

III. Ephesian Artemis 30 

IV. Artemis Astrateia and Apollo Amazonius 40 

V. Ares 57 

Conclusion 73 

Bibliography 77 



CHAPTER I 
The Amazons in Greek Legend 

The Iliad contains two direct references to the Amazons: — 
namely, in the story of Bellerophon 1 and in a passage from 
the famous teichoscopy. 2 The context to which the first of 
these belongs is classed by critics as an "echo" from the pre- 
Homeric saga, and therefore it may be inferred that the 
Amazon tradition in Greek literature dates from a time even 
earlier than the Homeric poems. The description of the 
women here is very slight, being given by the epithet avnaveipa^ 
of the line: to rpfoov av Karerre^vev 'A/uifoVa? avTiavei'pas, 5 
but, from the facts that battle with them is considered a severe 
test of the hero's valour and that as warriors they are ranked 
with the monstrous chimaera, the fierce Solymi, and picked 
men of Lycia, we gather that they are conceived as beings to 
be feared. The scene of combat with them is Lycia. The 
second of the two passages cited above is more definite. 
Priam, exclaiming on the happy lot of Agamemnon, who has 
been pointed out to him, says to Helen: "Oh, happy Atreid, 
fate's child, blessed with prosperity! Verily, to thee are many 
subject, youths of the Achaeans! Once did I go to vine-rich 
Phrygia, where I beheld vast numbers of Phrygian men with 
swift-moving steeds, the people of Otreus and godlike Mygdon, 
who were then encamped by the banks of the Sangarius. For 
I was numbered an ally with these on that day when the Ama- 
zons came, pitted against men. Yet even these were not as 
many as are the quick-glancing Achaeans." Although the 
characterisation is the same as in the Bellerophon story 

1 Iliad, 6. 168-195. 

2 Ibid. 3. 182-190. 
« Ibid. 6. 186. 



2 



('A^a£bW avTidveLpai) , there is gain in that the impression 
of the Amazons as a mighty band of warriors is strengthened, 
also that the event has its place in the conventional chronology 
of Greek legend, antedating the Trojan War. It is to be noted, 
moreover, that here the Amazons are the aggressors on the 
confines of Phrygia. 

There is another allusion in Homer to the Amazons, although 
this is indirect rather than direct. It occurs in the second 
book of the Iliad, where the spot of assembly for the Trojans 
and their allies is designated: 4 "There is before the city a 
certain lofty barrow, in the plain far away, standing detached 
on this side and on that, which men, forsooth, call Batieia, 
but the immortals name it the grave of swift-bounding 
Myrina. Here then were the Trojans numbered and their 
allies.' ' The scholiast and the commentary of Eustatius on 
the passage tell that this Myrina was an Amazon, the daughter 
of Teucer and the wife of Dardanus, and that from her the 
city Myrina in Aeolis was said to have been named. 5 It 
seems reasonable to suppose that the commentators are correct, 
for in later literature we hear much of an Amazon by this 
name, and there is frequent mention of graves of various 
Amazons, here and there in Greek lands, always regarded with 
wonder and awe akin to the reverence with which Homer 
mentions the tomb of Myrina. 

The Amazons then, as they appear in the Homeric poems, 
are a horde of warrior women who strive against men, and 
with whom conflict is dangerous even to the bravest of heroes. 
They belong to Asia Minor, seemingly at home in the neigh- 
bourhood of Lycia and opponents of the Phrygians on the 
river Sangarius. About the grave of one of their number 
there lurks a hint of the supernatural. The poet does not 

*Ibid. 2. 811-815. 

5 Cf. Diod. Sic. 3. 54, 55; Strabo, 12. 573; 13. 623; Plato, Cratyl. 392a; SchoL 
Oppian, Halieutica, 3. 403; Hesych. s.v. parLeia and s. /cdp^oto Mvphrjs; Eust. 
ad D. Per. 828. 



3 



say whether she was friend or foe of Troy. On the analogy of 
similar graves pointed out in various parts of Greece, she who 
lay buried there may well have been a foe, yet later Greek 
commentators saw in this one an ancestress of the royal line 
of Troy. 

In this they may have drawn on the Aethiopis, which tells 
of an alliance between Amazons and Trojans. We pass thus 
from the Homeric Epic to the Epic Cycle. Proclus in the 
XprjcTTOfidOeia Tpafjifxart/crj, whence Photius quotes excerpts, 
says that the last book of the Iliad was followed by the 
Aethiopis in five books, written by Arctinus of Miletus (circa 
750 B.C.). He starts the argument thus: "The Amazon 
Penthesilea, daughter of Ares, a Thracian by birth, appears 
to give aid to the Trojans. In the pride of her valour Achilles 
slays her, and the Trojans bury her. Achilles destroys 
Thersites for speaking slander against him and carping at his 
alleged love for Penthesilea; whence there is a division among 
the Greeks in regard to the murder of Thersites." It is not 
possible to trace the story of Penthesilea beyond the date of 
the Aethiopis. How much the poet made of the romantic 
situation drily described by Proclus, it cannot be determined, 
for the evidence has perished with the work. Certainly it 
did not lose in pathetic details at the hands of the writers 
and painters of later years. The outline preserved by Proclus 
speaks only of the "alleged love" of Achilles for the queen, 
yet that affords a starting-point for the play of much romantic 
fancy in subsequent times. 6 The fact that in the Aethiopis 
Penthesilea is called a Thracian raises the question whether 
the author does this lightly, or whether he has serious thought 

6 Save for one unimportant version (Dar. Phryg.), wherein Penthesilea is 
slain by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, her death by the hand of her lover Achilles is a 
regular convention in Greek literature, Cf. Q. Sm. 1. 19 ff., 134; Nonnus, 35. 28; 
HeUan, in Tzetz. Post-Horn. 19; Et. M. 493, 41; Lycoph. 997; Diet, Cret. 3. 
15; 4. 2; Eust. Horn. 1696, 52; Hyg. Fab. 112, 225; Serv. ad Aen. 1. 491; Just, 
2. 4; Ovid, Her. 21. 118; Prop. 3. 9, 14. For evidence concerning the treatment 
of the subject in Greek painting see Paus. 5. 11, 6. 



4 



of Thrace as the home of the race and of Ares as their patron 
deity. Diodorus 7 gives Ares as the father of Penthesilea and 
Otrere as her mother, and St. Basil 8 adds that she was queen of 
the Amazons of Alope in Pontus, but elsewhere 9 Otrere too is 
called a daughter of Ares, her mother being Harmonia, while 
her children are Hippolyta and Penthesilea. Ares, however, 
is quite steadily named by Greek writers as the father of the 
Amazons in general, and Harmonia, as their mother. 10 

Another Amazon is mentioned by name in an epic fragment 
preserved by the scholiast on Pindar's third Nemean Ode, 
line 64: "Telamon of insatiate battle-shout was the first to 
bring light to our comrades by slaying man-destroying, 
blameless Melanippe, own sister to the golden-girdled queen." 
This new character is attested an Amazon by the epithet 
avSpoXereipav, a vigorous variant on avTidveipa, and by her 
kinship with the "golden-girdled queen," who can be none 
other than Hippolyta. The adjective afi(o/j,7]Tov is conven- 
tional and colourless. The fragment must belong to a long 
passage — if not to a whole poem — descriptive of the combat 
waged by Telamon and his comrades against the Amazons. 11 

That the well-worn story of Heracles and the "golden- 

7 Diod. Sic. 2. 46. 

8 St. Basil, s.v. 'A\6ir7j. 

s Cf. Ap. Rh. 2. 389 and Schol. Tzetz. Post-Horn. 8. 189;Schol. Ap. Rh. 2. 
1032; Schol. Iliad, 3. 189; Lyc. Cass. 997; Hyg. Fab. 30, 112, 163, 223, 225. 

10 Pherec. ap. Schol. Ap. Rh. 2. 992; Lys. 2. 4; Isoc. 4. 68; 12. 193; Nonnus, 
34. 158. For a discussion of the bearing of this fact see Chapter V. 

11 Welcker (Der epische Cyclus, 2. pp. 200 ff.) derives the lines from the Atthis 
or Amazonides of Hegesinus, a writer for whom the only extant source is Pausa- 
nias, 9. 29, 1 ff. Liibbert, however (De Pindari Studiis Hesiodeis et Homericis, 
pp. 10 ff.), derives them from the Eoeae of Hesiod, an opinion which Rzach 
follows (ed. of Hesiod, p. 197). A third theory is advanced by Corey (De Ama- 
zonum Antiquissimis Figuris, p. 42), namely, that the fragment is from the work 
of Cynaethus (circa 504 B.C.). On the chance that it is older than Corey be- 
lieves, the fragment should be considered along with the data which may be 

/collected about the Amazons from the literature of the centuries immediately 
following Homer. 



5 



girdled queen" had its place in some song of the Epic Cycle 
seems a reasonable admission, 12 and it may therefore be 
considered proper to sketch its simple outline, as it appears in 
later poetry and prose. By the excellent testimony of the 
early vases which show Heracles and the Amazon together 
the epic source of the later versions of the tale is dated in the 
period from the eighth to the sixth century B.C. The general 
plot is this: — Heracles, arrived at Themiscyra, prepares to 
give battle for the girdle, in search of which he has been sent/: 
but succeeds in obtaining it from the queen without force of 
arms, whereupon Hera arouses the other Amazons against 
him. In the fight which ensues Heracles is victorious, but 
he slays Hippolyta. 13 For the first time we hear of Themiscyra 
on the Thermodon as the home-city of the Amazons. As in 
the case of Penthesilea and Achilles this legend of Heracles and 
Hippolyta has a touch of romance. 

Even more romantic interest gathers about the story of^ 
Theseus and his Amazon, called usually Antiope, but often \ 
Hippolyta. The secret of this lies probably in the great 
vogueliccorded to the traditional adventures of Theseus, the 
national hero of Athens. As in vase painting Heracles, once 
popular with the masters of the old style, was gradually 
crowded aside by Theseus, so it happened in literature. It 
would seem that the epic from which the story of Theseus and 

12 Robert {Hermes, 19. pp. 485 ff.) conjectures a single epic, the Amazonika 
by Onasus, as the source of the accounts of the expedition of Heracles and Tela- 
mon given by Pindar in three places, Nemean, 3. 36 ff.; 4. 25 &.; Isthmian, 6 
(5). 27 ff. He dates this lost epic before the sixth century B.C. Corey (op. cit. 
pp. 35 ff.) finds evidence for two epic accounts, the first epitomised by Hellanicus 
(Fr. 33, 136, 138 in Miiller, Frag. Hist. Graec. 1. pp. 49-64), the second given by 
ApoUodorus (Bibl. 2. 5, 9, 7-12; 6. 4-7, 1). 

13 On Heracles and Hippolyta cf. Plut. Thes. 37; Paus. 1. 41, 7; Ap. Rh. 2. 781 
and Schol. 1001; Nonn. 25. 251; Q. Sm. 1. 24; 6. 242; Planud, Anthol. 91; Isocr. 
12. 193; ApoUod. 2. 5, 9; Diod. Sic. 2. 46, 416; Plut. Quaest. Gr. 45; Pherec. ap. 
Athen. 13. 557, 9; Airian^A~ndb. 7. 13, 5; Luc. Anach. 34; Zen. 5. 33; Et. M. 
402, 13. 



6 

Antiope 14 was derived was later than that which was the source 
of the tale of Heracles, for Theseus appears in company with 
the Amazons only on vases of the red-figured technique, never 
on the older specimens of ceramic art. 15 According to Pau- 
sanias 16 there were two versions of the story of Antiope: that 
of Pindar, who told that she was stolen bv Pirithoiis and 
Theseus, and that of Agias or Hegias of Troezen, who told 
that when Heracles with Theseus as a companion was besieging 
Themiscyra, Antiope betrayed the city for love of Theseus. 
The Athenian story of the invasion of Attica by the Amazons 
in search of their queen complements either version. How 
much material Euripides drew from the Cycle for his con- 
ception of the mother of Hippolytus as the discarded wife of 
Theseus cannot be determined. 

The contribution which the Epic Cycle seems to have 
made to the idea of the Amazons presented by Homer may be 
summed up as characterisation of individuals of the race. 
To Homer the Amazons are merely a horde of redoubtable 
warriors, who appear at the gates of the Asiatic world. To 
the later epic they are a people who dwell in a city on the 
Euxine at the mouth of the Thermodon. They are thus 

/conceived as a settled race on the outskirts of civilisation. 
They belong to the eastern lands whither only adventurers 
and hardy colonists dared to sail. The stories told of their 
heroines, Penthesilea, Hippolyta, and Antiope, bring the race 

^into direct contact with Greek legendary history. 

To say that in Homer the Amazons are creatures of fable, 
in the Cycle women of romantic legend, and to the Greek 

^ On Theseus and Antiope cf. Paus. 5. 11, 4-5; Plut. Thes. 26 (from Philo- 
chorus) ; Isocr. Panath. 193; Plut. Thes. (quoting Theseid); Pindar ap. Paus. 
1. 2, 1; Pheree. ap. Plut. Thes. 26; Schol. Pind. Xem. 5. 89; Plut, (Thes. 27) and 
Euripides (Hippolytus) name this Amazon Hippolyta, 

15 On the authority of Welcker most scholars consider the Nosti of Agias or 
Hegias the epic source for the tales of Theseus and Antiope. 

w Paus. 1. 2, 1. 



7 



historians a race of the barbarians, seems a more or less 
serviceable way of expressing the growth of thought on this 
subject, so far as it is now to be ascertained. The value of 
such a statement lies in its being suggestive, rather than 
strictly accurate in detail. It is only another way of saying 
that epic verse as a medium of narration had given place to 
prose. Evidently the invasion of Attica, an event probably 
first described in the Cycle, is the historic fact, as the Greek 
historians regarded it, on which all doubts about the reality 
of the Amazons 17 might be broken, for as a memorial there were 
to be seen many tombs of these women in Greek lands. 18 
The tale which Pausanias 19 heard about the Hippolyta who was 
buried at Megara is probably typical of the poetic legends 
current among the country-folk wherever there was the 
tradition of the Amazons' coming: — "I will write her story 
as the Megarians tell it: When the Amazons made their 
expedition for Antiope's sake and were overcome by Theseus, 
it was the fate of the many to die in battle, but Hippolyta, 
who was sister to Antiope and was at that time in command of 
the women, fled with a few to Megara. But, inasmuch as 
she had fared so ill with her armament, and was cast down by 
the circumstances of the present, and was still more dis- 
couraged about a safe return to Themiscyra, she died of grief, 
and the shape of her tomb is like to an Amazonian shield.' ' 
The place given to the invasion of the Amazons in the chron- 

17 For a good statement of the general attitude in ancient times on this ques- 
tion of the reality of the Amazons see Strabo, 11. p. 505. According to Lysias 
(Epitaph. 3) the race of the Amazons was almost exterminated in the invasion 
of Attica. Cf. Isocr. Panegyr. p. 206; Demosth. Epitaph.; Plato, Menex. 9; 
De Legg. 2. p. 804. 

18 Tomb of Antiope at Athens, Paus. 1. 2, 1; cf. Pseudo-Plato, Axioch. pp. 
364a-365a. Tomb of Hippolyta at Megara, Paus. 1. 41, 7; cf. Plut, Thes. 27. 
Tomb of Amazons at Chaeronea and in Thessaly, Plut. Thes. 28. Tomb of 
Myrina near Troy, Iliad, 2. 811, and schol. and Eust. ad I: cf. Strabo, 12. 573; 
13. 623. Tomb of Anaea in the city of that name, Steph. Byz. s.v. 'Avala (quot- 
ing Ephorus). Tomb of Penthesilea, Aristeas, ep. 5 (Bergk, 1900). 

" Paus. 1. 41, 7. 



8 



icles of the historians seems to have been as fixed as that of 
the Trojan War. Herodotus 20 represents the Athenians 
claiming a post of honour before the battle of Plataea, sup- 
porting their plea by these "deeds of eld" (ra waXaid): 
first, their succour of the Heraclidae, second, their campaign 
against Thebes in vengeance of the dead followers of Polynices, 
third, their courage in the face of the invaders, " who, coming 
from the river Thermodon, fell once upon the Attic land/' 
j and, finally, their inferiority to none in the Trojan War. 
rThe order of events here places this invasion before the Trojan 
War, a chronological arrangement in accord with the tradi- 
tional date of Theseus. 

Herodotus, it will be observed, keeps to the geographical 
theory of the Cycle, placing the home of these warriors on the 
banks of the Thermodon. Strabo 21 clearly follows Herodotus 
and his successors, for he calls the plain about Themiscyra 
/ to tcov 'Kfxa^ovtov irehCov, but Diodorus, 22 giving the account of 
/ Dionysius of Mitylene, who, on his part, drew on Thymoetas, 23 
f states that a great horde of Amazons under Queen Myrina 
started from Libya, passed through Egypt and Syria, and 
stopped at the Caicus in Aeolis, near which they founded 
several cities. Later, he says, they established Mitylene a 
little way beyond the Caicus. 

In addition to Myrina in Aeolis 24 and Mitylene on Lesbos, 
I several cities of Asia Minor boasted that they were founded 
' by the Amazons. 25 Consistent with these claims is the fact 

20 Herod. 9. 27. 

21 Strabo, 2. 126. 

22 Diod. Sic. 3. 52 ff. 

23 Cf. Diod. Sic. 3. 66. 

24 There were two other cities in Asia Minor named Myrina. All three were 
connected with the name of the Amazon, but among them the city of Aeolis 
seems to take precedence. Cf. Eust. ad Dion. Per. 828. 5; Schol. Iliad, 2. 814; 
Diod. Sic. 3. 54, 55; Strabo, 12. 573; 13. 623. 

25 Cf. Klugmann, Uber die Amazonen der kleinasiatischen Stadte, in Phi- 
lology^, 30. pp. 529 ff. These cities were Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyme, Paphos, and 
Sinope. 



9 



\that in this neighbourhood the figure or head of an Amazon 
was in vogue as a coin-type, 26 and it is to be noted that such 
devices are very rarely found on coins elsewhere. In a frag- 
ment of Ephorus, who was a native of Cyme and, therefore, 
presumably conversant with the details of the legends there- 
| abouts, the Amazons are said to have lived in and near Mysia, 
j Caria, and Lydia. This evidence as a whole seems to point, 
not to the plain at the mouth of the Thermodon as the tra- 
ditional dwelling-place of the race, but to a centre much further 
west, namely, to that part of Asia Minor which borders on 
the Aegean. It is easy to reconcile this with the geographical 
setting of the story of Bellerophon, wherein Homer tells that 
the Amazons were sought and found somewhere near Lycia. 
Not far away are the Island of Patmos, where there was a 
place called Amazonium, 27 and the island of Lemnos, where 
there was another Myrina. 28 Arctinus is said 29 to have 
introduced into the saga the motive of a cavalry combat waged 
by the Lydians and Magnesians against the Amazons, of 
which the scene would naturally be in this part of the world, 
but this same writer's statement, that Penthesilea, who came 
to the help of Troy, was a Thracian, directs the attention away 
from Asia Minor, 30 although Thrace lay just across the 
Hellespont, near the Troad. It may well be, however, that 
the thought of Thrace in intimate association with this queen 
, is rather to be aligned with the facts indicating yet a third 
traditional home for the race, namely, in the regions of Scythia 
north of the Euxine and Lake Maeotis. 

Herodotus evidently considered Themiscyra the original 

26 Cf. especially coins of Smyrna. 

2 7 Anon. St. Mar. M. 283. 

28 Plin. N. H. 4. 12. 

2 9 Nic. Dam. Fr. 62. 

30 The story that Penthesilea bore to Achilles a child Cayster is probably 
too late to be of any value to this discussion. 



10 



home of the Amazons. 31 At any rate, having once designated 
them the "women from the Thermodon/' he does not go back 
of the characterisation in search of their antecedents. Perhaps 
the service which he does perform is of greater value, in that, 
by pointing out a group of people whom he believes to be 
descended from the Amazons, he seems to be pushing these 
forebears of the legendary time into the full light of history. 
I He tells 32 of the migration of a band of Amazons into the 
wild northern region between the Black Sea and the Caspian, 
beyond Lake Maeotis and the Tanais. From their inter- 
marriage with the Scythians the Sauromatae were descended, a 
Scythian tribe among whom the women were warriors and 
hunters. Other writers 33 also speak of the Amazons on the 
Maeotic Lake, a sheet of water best known to the Greeks by 
its western boundary, the Tauric Chersonese, the place where 
Iphigeneia lived as priestess of the cruel goddess. Even 
the Caucasus mountains and the hazily conceived Colchian 
land lay nearer to the Hellenic world than this savage Scythian 
region. Greek travellers brought back accounts of strange 
customs among these northern tribes. They told of the 
Tauri, that they immolated all shipwrecked strangers to their 
Artemis, 34 and of the Sauromatae, that none of their women 

31 As it has been stated (p. 6), this is the geographical theory of the Cycle. 
It should be added that Hecataeus, "who associates Sinope on the Euxine with 
the Amazons (Fr. 352) , and Mela, who mentions a city Amazonium in Pontus 
(1. 19; cf. Plin. N. H. 6. 4), are probably to be classed with the non-epic sources 
who follow the theory. 

32 Herod. 4. 110-117. 

33 The Amazons are often styled Maeotides. Cf. Mela, 1. 1; Justin, 2. 1; 
Curt. 5. 4; Lucan, 2; Ovid, Fasti, 3; El. 12; Ep. Sab. 2. 9; Verg. Aen. 6. 739. 

In discussing the geography of this region about Lake Maeotis, a note is 
called for on the confusion which Pape finds (JYdrterbuch, s.v. 'Afiafyv) between 
f A\aZ&ves and 'A/iafQves. It would seem that the former is a misspelling for 
the latter, appearing in Strabo's quotation from Ephorus (12. 550). That the 
masculine article is used with it does not seem odd, if one recalls St. Basil's 
statement (s.v. 'Afxa^wv), that the word may stand in the masculine. Herodo- 
tus mentions (4. 17, 52) a folk called -AXtfcwes, whose country lay on the 
northeast shore of the Euxine, but these are not Amazons. 

34 Herod. 4. 102 ff. 



11 



I married until she had slain a man of the enemy. 35 The Greek 
equivalent, avhpoKTovoi, which Herodotus gives for the Scythian 

I word meaning "Amazon" {olopTrara) , is strongly suggestive 
of the epithets, avridvetpcu and avhpoXereipcu, used of the Ama- 
zons. 36 

Aeschylus in the Prometheus Bound? 1 also associates the 
Amazons with the north. The geography of this passage is 
interesting in comparison with that of Herodotus, because the 
poet antedates the historian and therefore represents the vague 
reports of these regions which preceded the carefully considered 
mapping evolved by Herodotus. Aeschylus places the Nomad 
Scythians far to the north, near the Ocean, in which Strabo 38 
follows him, whereas Herodotus 39 finds them definitely estab- 
lished on the Gulf of Carcinitis, west of the Tauric Chersonese. 
The Chalybes, whom Herodotus 40 and Strabo 41 locate south of 
the Black Sea, are by Aeschylus relegated to northern Scythia. 
And, strangest of all, he seems to place Mount Caucasus 
north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. South of this 
are "the Amazons, man-hating, who will in a later time dwell \ 
in Themiscyra by the Thermodon." Elsewhere in the 
Prometheus* 2 the Amazons are called "the dwellers in the 
Colchian land, maidens fearless in battle/' and their home is 
evidently placed near that of "the throng of Scythia, who 
possess the land at the ends of the earth about Lake Maeotis." 
In the Suppliants* 3 Aeschylus speaks again of the Amazons, 
here as Ta? avdvSpovs Kpeof36pov$ r 'A/ua£bW?, a characterisation 
which suggests another line of his, quoted by Strabo: 44 

»5 Herod. 4. 117. 

86 V. supra, pp. 1 and 4. 

87 Prom. V. 707-735. 

88 Strabo, p. 492. 
39 Herod. 4. 19. 
« Herod. 1. 28. 

« Strabo, p. 678. 
« Prom. V. 415-419. 
43 Supplices, 287. 
" Strabo, 7, p. 300. 



12 



aW* liriraKT]^ ft parr} pes cvvo/jloi *2/cv0ai. Aeschylus thsm 
apparently places the original home of the Amazons in the 
country about Lake Maeotis, conceiving this region to be 
practically identical with the Colchian land, or contiguous 
to it. He speaks of their migrating thence to Themiscyra, 
while Herodotus holds the opposite theory, that they migrated 
from an original home at Themiscyra to Scythia. It seems 
proper to give the preference to the latter as the view com- 
monly held in antiquity, for Herodotus is the later writer and 
the more scientific student of geography. Strabo, who had 
large opportunities for the comparison of conflicting accounts, 

j pointedly says 45 that Themiscyra, the plain thereabouts, and 
the overhanging mountains belonged to the Amazons, and 
that they were driven from this home. 46 

It may be concluded that there were three centres to which 
Greek tradition assigned the Amazons: — one in western Asia 
Minor, — a large district in the form of a strip stretching from 
the Propontis to the tip of Lycia; the second in Pontus along 
the Euxine, with a western boundary at Sinope, an eastern 
at Colchis, and a southern undefined, somewhere in the 
interior of Cappadocia; a third in Scythia, conceived as the 
Tauric Chersonese, the regions east of Lake Maeotis, those 

| north of the same lake, and probably also those which border 
the Euxine on the north and west, including Thrace. Each 
of these is an area so large that only by extension of the term 
may it be denoted a centre. Threads of affiliation reach out 
also to Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Out of this maze the source 
of the Amazon legend is to be sought. To round out this 
brief summary of the geography of the legend the list should 

45 Strabo, p. 505. 

46 As the Greeks travelled more, there was a growing tendency among them 
to place the original home of the Amazons further and further away. As they 
did not find such a folk in western Asia Minor, or along the southern shore of 
the Euxine, it was natural for them to suppose that they were to be sought in 

I the little explored regions of Scythia, also of Libya. Such reasoning was rein- 
forced by reports which came of Scythian and Libyan women who were warriors. 



13 



be set down of the places in Greece proper which are especially 
mentioned in the tale of the invasion of the Amazons: — 
Athens, 47 Troezen, 48 Megara, 49 Chaeronea, 50 Chalcis in 
Euboea, 51 Thessaly. 52 

But the story of the Amazons as the Greeks thought of 
them would not be complete without several additional details. 
Among these is the tradition, which has seized powerfully 
on the imagination of later times, that it was the custom of 
these women to burn out the right breast, in order that they 
might the better draw the bow. 53 The story is usually ex- 
plained as an attempt to derive the word 'Apatyv from fxaffi 
with prefix of a privative. It seems probable that this false 
etymology grew out of the theory that the Sarmatians were 
descendants of the Amazons, for Hippocrates of Cos, a 
younger contemporary of Herodotus, gives a detailed account 
of the practice among the Sarmatian women. 54 Philostratus 55 
takes pains to say that the Amazons were not thus mutilated. 
Most cogent as an argument against the universality of the 
theory in ancient times is the fact that nowhere among the 
extant remains of Greek art is there a representation of a 
single-breasted Amazon. All that can be brought forward for 
the other side from artistic sources is that there was evidently 
a convention in favour of showing one breast bare in plastic 
and pictorial delineations of these women. 

47 Paus. 1. 2, 1; Diod. Sic. 4. 28, 2, 3; Clitod, ap. Plut. Thes. 27; Isaeus ap. 
Harpocration; Suidas, s.v. ' A/ia£6veiov. 
«8 Paus. 2. 31, 4-5. 
49 Paus. 1. 41, 7; Plut. Thes. 27. 
" Plut. Thes. 28. 
« Plut. Thes. 37, 3. 
« Plut. Thes. 28. 

63 Schol. and Eust. ad Iliad, 3. 189; Diod. Sic. 2. 45; Justin, 2. 4, 5; Apollod. 
2. 5, 9; Arrian, Anab. 7. 13, 2. Cf. Latin Unimammia of Plautus, Curcul. 3. 75 # 

84 Hippocr. De Aere Locis et Aquis, 17. Herodotus seems to have been the 
first to speak of the Sarmatians as descendants of the Amazons (4. 110-117). 
In this he was followed by Ephorus (Fr. 103); Scymn. Chius, 5. 102; Plato, De 
Legg. 7. p. 804; Diod. Sic. 2. 34. 

65 Philostr. Heroid. 20. 42. 



14 



This naturally introduces the general subject of the treat- 
ment of the Amazons in Greek art. The battle between 
Greeks and Amazons was a favourite theme with the sculptors 
of friezes. Its companion pieces are the fight between Lapiths 
and Centaurs and the historic struggle between Greeks and 
Persians. In each of these subjects the Greek requisite of 
I simplicity in art demanded that the essential element should 
be sought by analysis, in order that the composition might 
present the situation in a telling manner. It follows that the 
point brought out in the scenes from the Persian Wars is that 
Greek is pitted against Persian, in the Centauromachy, that 
it is civilised man against bestial man, in the conflict with the 
Amazons, that the battle is between man and woman. There- 
fore the Greek artist emphasises, in the first, the national dress 
of the combatants, in the second, the savage appearance of 
the monsters, in the third, the womanhood of the Amazons 
contrasted with the manhood of their enemies. Uniformly 
in the friezes the Amazons are beautiful. Those who have 
fallen are treated by the artist with peculiar tenderness; those 
who are brought to bay are spirited and valiant, but also 
delicate and frail; those who are for the moment victorious 
show no savage exultation, as do the fierce Centaurs in the 
same situation. Their costume is usually a short tunic girt 
up for action, frequently open at one side in order to display 
the woman's figure. The effort is always, not to show them 
to be foreigners who wear a fantastic garb, but to indicate 
plainly that they are women warring with men. 

The famous free-standing statues of Amazons which have 
come down to us, and which inherit the artistic tradition of the 
masters of the fifth century, 56 show the same sympathetic 
treatment. The face is calm and ideally beautiful, the body 
is that of a young woman in her prime, strong, supple, and 

66 Cf. Plin. N. H. 34. 75. 



15 



graceful, dressed in a short tunic which leaves one breast 
bare. 57 

There are also examples of the mounted Amazon in sculp- 
ture. Perhaps one of the finest bits in existence is the frag- 
ment of horse and woman-rider from Epidaurus, now in the 
National Museum at Athens. This Amazon wears a short 
belted tunic and also a mantle fastened about her neck. She 
is remarkably lithe and beautiful; she sits her horse perfectly; 
best of all is the contrast between her slender body and the 
powerful and sinewy frame of the animal. 

In the museum at Naples there is a piece of sculpture in the 
style of a later period. It represents a dead Amazon, lying 
supine. She wears the conventional dress, the short tunic 
which reveals the bare breast, and under her is a spear. Her 
lips are open in the last struggle for breath. About the whole 
figure there is a note of sadness. The distended breasts 
suggest maternity, a detail which possibly indicates that the 
figure of a baby was originally grouped with this Amazon^ 
Special interest attaches to this work as a type of the Amazon 
in the last days of Greek art, before its vigour had departed, 
for it is doubtless a detail, in close copy of the original, from 
the group which Attalus set up on the Acropolis at Athens. 58 

In vase-paintings, rather than in sculpture, we find the 
characteristic weapons of the Amazons, the shield shaped like 
an ivy-leaf, 59 the Scythian bow, 60 and the battle-axe. 61 Here 
also we see the mantle of panther's skin similar to that which 
Penthesilea wore in the painting by Polygnotus at Delphi. 62 

57 In the Mattei type the left breast is bare, in the Capitoline, the right. In 
the Berlin type and in that in Lansdowne House the left breast is entirely bare, 
and the right is almost entirely so. 

58 Paus. 1. 25, 2; Plut. Anton. 60; S. Q. 1995, 1996. 
69 Xen. ap. Pollux, 1. 134; Plin. N. H. 3. 43; Paus. 1. 41, 7. 
e° Paus. 10. 31, 8. 

61 The double-axe is called adyapts (securis) and also reXe/cus. Cf. Xen. 
Anab. 4. 4; Q. Sm. 1. 597. Plutarch (Pomp. 35) mentions the axe and the pelta 
as Amazonian arms. The latter was carried also by the Thracians and Persians. 

62 Paus. 10. 31, 8. 



16 



The types of Amazons in vase-painting are numerous. They 
are shown in every conceivable situation indicative of their 
prowess in battle and in the hunt, — on foot, on horseback, in 
chariots, preparing for combat, taking the ephebes , oath, 
bearing away the dead, and so on. 63 The groups on the 
vases frequently recall the friezes. In addition to these por- 
trayals of the Amazons in general the vases show scenes from 
the Heracles saga and from the legend of Theseus. 

The inference is inevitable, that among the great painters 
the Amazons were popular as a subject, for it is to be pre- 
sumed that in these themes, as in others, the potters' work- 
shops merely followed the fashion of the art which they 
distantly reflected. First-hand evidence of the manner in 
which painters managed the presentation is not available. 
The vases furnish the best information on this point, and their 
testimony may be eked out by a few passages from literature. 64 
Such then in a general way is the tradition of the Amazons, 
which had an important place in Greek art and literature. 
This review is the natural introduction to the study of cults 
associated with these women, for without a clear understanding 
of the legend certain details of cult-practice are obscure. 

C The points which should bear emphasis are these : — the 
persistent belief among the Greeks in the real existence of 

I Amazons; the conception of them as unusually fierce warriors, 
and this in spite of various tendencies of thought destructive 
of such an idea; the habit of associating them with certain 

j definite geographical centres. 

63 Corey tabulates the types which he finds in vase-painting, op. ext. pp. 49 ff. 

64 Cf. e. g. Paus. 1. 15, 2; 10. 31, 8. Cf. Frazer, Pans. 2. 139. 



CHAPTER II 



The Great Mother 

More primitive than the worship of the gods under anthro- 
pomorphic form is the custom of reverencing this or that deity 
in baetylic or aniconic shape, a habit of religious cult for 
which there is ample evidence in the writings and monuments 
of the Greeks. This evidence, however, usually indicates such 
worship only in very early times, showing that it gave place 
here and there to a more highly developed stage, that of iconic 
symbolism, but there are examples of this primitive conception 
. of deity in late times. Conspicuous among these survivals 
\ is the worship of Cybele under the form of the Black Stone of 
Pessinus in Phrygia. By order of the Sibylline books the 
cult was transplanted to Rome, in 204 B.C., as a means of 
s driving Hannibal out of Italy. 65 

Apollonius 66 represents the Amazons engaged in ritual 
C exactly similar to that of Pessinus — venerating a black stone 
J placed on an altar in an open temple situated on an island off 
V the coast of Colchis. The character of the worship which he 
depicts makes it probable that he drew his information on 
this point from an early source, especially since we learn from 
Diodorus 67 that the Amazons paid marked honour to the 
Mother of the Gods, consecrating to her the island of Samo- 
thrace, setting up her altars there, and performing magnificent 

« Livy, 29. 10, 11. 

66 Apollon. Argon. 2. 1172-1177. Because of its resemblance to the Black 
Stone of Pessinus, it seems impossible to interpret the stone mentioned by 
Apollonius otherwise than as the symbol of Cybele, although it was placed in a 
temple of Ares. For the view that it represented Ares v. H. de La Ville de 
Mirmont, La Mythologie et les Dieux dans les Argonautiques et dans VEneide, 
Paris, 1894, p. 569. V. infra, n. 346. 

* 7 Diod. Sic. 3. 55. 

3 17 



18 

sacrifices. At any rate, the two passages substantiate the 
fact that the Amazons were votaries of the Mother, who was 
known both as Rhea and as Cybele. 

One story 68 told that Scamander introduced the rites of 
the Cretan Mother into Phrygia, and that they were firmly 
established at Pessinus on the Sangarius as a chief centre, 
where the goddess received from the mountain ridge over- 
hanging the city the well-known name, Dindymene; 69 another 
account 70 had it that the home of Phrygian Cybele's worship 
was in Samothrace, whence Dardanus brought the cult to 
Phrygia; an attempt to rationalise the two legends developed 
the tale 71 that Corybas of Samothrace, son of Demeter and 
Jasion, introduced the rites of his mother into Phrygia, and 
that his successors, the Corybantes of Mount Ida in the Troad, 
passed over to the Cretan mountain of the same name, in 
order to educate the infant Zeus. In the minds of the various 
writers of antiquity to whom we are indebted for all that we 
know about orgiastic cults there is such confusion that we are 
left in ignorance of accurate details which would serve to 
distinguish sharply one cult from another. 

We are informed on several points, however, concerning 
the worship of Cybele, the Great Mother of Phrygia, con- 
sidered apart from other cults similar in character and ex- 
pression. Her worship at Pessinus in particular is most 
important to an inquiry concerning the Amazons, because 
there, attested by history, was the same baetylic form of the 
goddess under which the Amazons were said to have venerated 
her. Roman writers naturally, after the Black Stone had 
\ been set up in their city, were moved by interest and curiosity 
j to examine the legends connected with the cult, and so it 

« 8 Apollod. 3. 12; Diod. Sic. 4. 

69 Strabo, 10. pp. 469, 472; 12. p. 567. Cf. Hor. Carm. 1. 16, 5; Catull. 
Atys, 63. 

7 ° Diod. Sic. 5. 64. 
71 Hyg. Poet. 2. 4. 



19 



happens that to these sources we owe many facts, often 
gleaned from the poets of the early Empire who looked with| 
disgust on the great vogue of this orgiastic cult in their day. - 
Cybele of Pessinus was served by eunuch priests called Galli. 7 ^ 
This office of priesthood, which was considered very honour- 
able, seems to have commemorated the devotion of Atys to 
the goddess. Fortunately we have a record 73 of the peculiar 
form which the legend of Atys assumed at Pessinus. Here he 
was regarded as the son of a maiden by the fruit of an almond- 
tree, which sprang from the bi-sexual Agdistis. Agdistis 74 
loved him and made him her paredros and Gallus. From the 
same source, Pausanias, we learn the Lydian variant of the 
story. 75 In this he is called the son of Calaiis of Phrygia. 
He established the orgies of the Mother in Lydia, in connection 
with which he was so loved by the goddess that Zeus in jealousy 
sent a wild boar into the fields of Lydia, which killed Atys. 
Both versions show that the youth held in Cybele's mysteries 
a position similar to that of Adonis with Aphrodite and of 
Osiris with Isis, 76 but it seems to have been the peculiar 
characteristic of the cult of Cybele that her companion was a 
Gallus. The fact which stands out conspicuously in all the 
records of the Pessinuntian rites is the service of effeminate 
priests, 77 who apparently represent him. In this there is 

"Strabo, 10. pp. 469, 572; 12. p. 567; 14. pp. 640-641; Diod. Sic. 3. 58; 
Mar. Par. ap. C. Miiller, Fr. 1. 544; Ovid, Fasti, 4. 237, 363; Plin. N. H. 5. 147; 
11. 261; 31. 9; 35. 165; Catull. Atys. Cf. Anthol. Pal. 7. 217-220. 

" Paus. 7. 17, 10-12. 

74 Strabo (12. p. 567) says that Cretan Rhea received the name Agdistis at 
Pessinus, and that on Mt. Agdistis near this city the tomb of Atys was shown. 
Cf. Paus. 1. 4, 5. 

7 5 Paus. 7. 17, 9-10. 

76 For a complete treatise on Atys cf. Frazer, Attis, Adonis: Osiris, in Golden 
Bough, Part 4. 

77 The idea was revolting to the Greeks. Cf. Herod. 3. 48; 8. 105; Aristot. 
Polit. 5. 8, 12. The practice was common among the Phrygians and other 
Asiatics of ancient times. With Herod. 8. 105 cf. Soph. Fr. from Troilus ap. 
Pollux, 10. 165. As a religious detail it belonged to the rites of Artemis at 



20 



probably a clue to the connection between Cretan Rhea and 
Phrygian Cybele, for in the two sets of cult legends there is 
frequent mention of the Dactyli, who belong both to Cretan 
and Trojan Ida. 78 Their evident association with metallurgy 
recalls the iron sickle produced by Gaea and given to Cronus 
to accomplish the overthrow of Uranus. 79 

The underlying idea in the cult of Cybele seems to have 
been that of an earth-goddess of fertility in man, beast, and 
field. Her worship was accompanied by the sound of crashing 
drums and cymbals, the music of the pipe, and the voices of 
frenzied votaries. Of her inspiration came a form of holy 
madness, which endowed the worshipper with a sense of mystic 
ecstasy and supernatural strength. The best extant descrip- 
tion of the rites is that given by Lucretius, 80 which, although 
it is marred by the allegorising tendency of the poet's thought, 
conveys an excellent impression of the tumultuous festival. 
The most awe-inspiring detail of the ceremonies is that beneath 
the joy of the throng's self -surrender to the deity there is a 
terrific undertone like that of the muttering drums. The 
fervour of rejoicing may in a moment become the curse of 
irresistible madness sent by the Mother. It is a presage of 
the mourning in the Atys of Catullus: 81 

" Dea Magna, Dea Cybele, Dindymi Dea, Domina, 
Procul a mea tuus sit furor omnis, hera, domo: 
Alios age incitatos: alios age rabidos!" 

Ephesus, to those of Zeus and Hecate at Lagina in Caria, to those of Aphrodite 
at Bambyce, or Hierapolis, in Syria. In each of these instances the deity par- 
takes in some measure of the characteristics of Cybele. Cf. Farnell, Cults of the 
Greek States, 2. pp. 506 ff., p. 590. 

78 Hesiod. Theog. 161; Schol. Ap. Rh. 1129 (quoting Phoronis); Strabo, 10. 
p. 472. 

79 The story of the overthrow of Uranus belongs to the Hesiodic theogony 
(Hes. Theog. 160, 182). It has a counterpart in the later Orphic theogony, in 
the story of the overthrow of Cronus by Zeus. Both myths centre about the 
Dictaean Cave in Crete. The worship of Dictaean Zeus seems to have belonged 
to the Eteocretans (Strabo, 10. p. 478). 

80 Lucr. Be Rerum Nature, 2. 600-640. 

81 Catull. Atys, ad finem. 



21 



Ancient notices speak of other priests of Cybele, less 
important than the Galli. These were the Cybebi and 
Metragyrtae, 82 mendicant friars, whose machinations at Rome 
were scorned by Juvenal. 83 

In the cult legends the Galli of history are probably repre- 
sented by the Corybantes, about whom there is much con- 
fusion. At times they seem to belong only to Cybele's rites, 
at other times they are completely identified with the Curetes. 
Probably the tales of Corybantes and Curetes preserve the 
record of primitive armed dances of religious character, in 
honour of Phrygian Cybele and Cretan Rhea respectively. 
As the two deities are essentially the same, 84 so the hoplite 
attendants of the one are practically the same as those of the 
other. As each cult assumed local individuality, the myths 
concerning the Corybantes would gradually appear to be 
quite distinct from those about the Curetes. Naturally, 
only an initiate in the mysteries attached to either cult would 
possess accurate information on details, and his lips would be 
inevitably sealed on all important points, so that posterity 
must be content to remain puzzled by remarks like this of 
Pausanias: 85 "In lineage the Corybantes are different from 
the Curetes, but, although I know the truth about both, I 
pass it over." Unfortunately certain writings by Epimenides 86 
which might have proved highly satisfactory to modern 

82 Photius and Suidas s.v. (i^rpayvprr]^. These priests find a strikingly exact 
counterpart in the howling dervishes of Mohammedanism. In fact, many close 
parallels to the worship of the Great Mother may be met in the Orient to-day. 
The word Cybebus is evidently the masculine form of the name of the goddess, 
given by Herodotus as KujSi^ty (Herod. 5. 102). 

8 3 Juv. Sat. 6. 512 ff. 

84 The two deities were so completely blended into one that even in early 
Greek writings it was needless to discriminate between them. Cf. the complete 
identification of Rhea with Cybele in the Homeric Hymn to the Mother of the 
Gods (14). 

8 * Paus. 8. 37, 6. 

86 The KovprfTtav and Kopvpdvruv yivecru of Epimenides, referred to in 
Strabo, 10. p. 474, and Diog. Laert. 1. 10. 



22 



inquiry have perished. In the actual ceremonies performed at 
Cybele's shrines the original warlike character 87 was almost lost 
in the mystic frenzy which found expression in noisy shouting 
and self-affliction, but it is doubtless to be traced in the 
measured beating of drums, the clashing of cymbals, and the 
music of the pipe, which set the rhythm for the ecstatic 
motions of the worshippers. It was expressed also in the 
political and warlike aspect of the goddess thus adored. 88 The 
Cretan legends told that the Phrygian Corybantes were 
summoned to the island, where by beating their shields with 
their swords they drowned the cries of the new-born Zeus 
from the ears of his jealous father, and so originated the 
Pyrrhic dance in which the later Curetes honoured Rhea, by 
moving to and fro in measured time, nodding their crested 
helmets, and striking their shields. 89 
| The Curetes are, moreover, confounded with the Dactyli, 
who are usually given as five in number, — Heracles, Paeonius, 
Epimedes, Jasion, and Idas, 90 — the metallurgists of Cretan and 

87 In the course of excavations at Palaikastro in Crete a hymn of the Curetes 
was discovered, which is dated about 300 B.C. The hymn is discussed in three 
papers, British School Annual, 15 (1908-09) : (1) Miss J. E. Harrison (pp. 308- 
338), "The Kouretes and Zeus Kouros: A Study in Pre-historic Sociology"; 
(2) R. C. Bosanquet (pp. 339-356), Text of the Hymn and certain religious as- 
pects, "The Cult of Diktaean Zeus" and "The Cult of the Kouretes"; (3) 
Gilbert Murray (pp. 356-365), Restored Text, Translation, and Commentary. 
Miss Harrison's study is under these headings: "1. The Kouretes as Aaifwves 
and Tlpd-rroXoi; 2. The Kouretes as Magicians, as Mdvreis and Metallurgists; 
3. The Kouretes as armed ' 'Opxyo rrjpes; 4. The Kouretes as $v\a.K€s and 
Uaidor p6<poi; 5. Zagreus and the Thunder-Rites; 6. The Kouros as Year-God; 

U 7. The Kouretes as ' Opyuxp&PTat." The three articles form a very valuable con- 
tribution to the study of orgiastic cults and kindred subjects. 

88 Farnell speaks with certainty (op. cit. 2. p. 306) of the primitive warlike 
character of Cybele. 

89 Hesiod. Theog. 452, 487; Apollod. 1. 1, 6. The Orphic theogony connects 
the shouts of the Curetes and the clashing of their shields with the story of the 
overthrow of Cronus by Zeus. Cf. Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 519; Hermann, Orphica, 
6. p. 456. 

80 Paus. 5. 7, 6. The scholiast on the passage says that they were ten in 
number. Paus. gives the same names for the five, 5. 14, 7. 



23 



Trojan Ida, also with the mysterious "Kvatcres 7rcuSe?, who are 
either the Dioscuri or the Cabiri. 91 Idas is the name, not 
only of a Curete, but likewise of one of the Messenian rivals 
and counterparts of the Spartan Aioo-fcovpoi; 92 Jasion is the 
name of the mortal whom Demeter loved in Crete, 93 and who 
with her belongs to the mysteries of Samothrace; the Dactyl 
Heracles, whom Pausanias 94 carefully distinguishes from 
Alcmena's son, is by this writer 95 very cleverly identified with 
the deity of this name worshipped at Erythrae in Ionia, at 
Tyre, and even at Mycalessus in Boeotia. The Cabiri, being 
confounded with the Dactyli, are brought into close relation 
to the Curetes. On the other hand, they are confused with 
the Corybantes through Corybas, son of Jasion and Demeter, 
who was said to have introduced his mother's worship into 
Phrygia from Samothrace. 96 

Of the Cabiric mysteries very little can be said with cer- 
tainty, except that Demeter was here revered as the mother 
of Plutus by Jasion. Herodotus, 97 himself an initiate, believes 
the mysteries of Samothrace to be of Pelasgic origin. He 
hints at a connection between these rites and the Pelasgians , 
introducing herms at Athens. Furthermore, he describes 98 
the type under which the Cabiri were portrayed in plastic art, 
that of a pygmy man, precisely like the pataici, or grotesque 
figure-heads which the Phoenician triremes carried. Excava- 
tions at the Cabirium in Thebes have yielded a unique class of 
vases which confirm his statement. 99 Their chief interest, 

91 Paus. 10. 38, 7. 

92 On Idas and Lynceus cf. Pind. Nem. 10. 55-90; Paus. 4. 3, 1. 

93 Hes. Theog. 970; Verg. Aen. 3. 168. 
9 *Paus. 5. 7, 6; 5. 14, 9. 

95 Paus. 9. 27, 6-8. 

9 « Diod. Sic. 5. 64; Hes. Theog. 970. 

97 Herod. 2. 51. 

9 s Herod. 3. 37. 

99 Cf. Journ. Hellen. Studies, 13. pi. 4; Athenische Mitteilungen (1888), pi. 
9-12. 



24 



apart from the peculiarities of technique, is in the frank 
caricature shown in the painted figures. The scenes are 
chiefly Dionysiac in character, from which it is to be inferred 
that the Theban Cabirus was a form of Dionysus, but this 
hardly agrees with the words of Pausanias, 100 who uses the 
plural number of the Cabiri at Thebes. He says that he is 
not at liberty to reveal anything about them, nor about the 
acts which were performed there in honour of the Mother, 
that he can only say that there was once a city on this spot, 
that there were certain men called Cabiri, among whom were 
Prometheus and his son, Aetnaeus, and that the mysteries 
were given by Demeter to the Cabiri. This account favours 
Welcker's theory 101 that the Cabiri were the "Burners." In i 
this capacity they would approach closely to the Dactyli. 
But they are not for this reason necessarily divorced from 
companionship with Dionysus, whom Pindar 102 calls the 
paredros of Demeter: ^aXtcoKporov irdpehpov A^/^re/ao?. The 
epithet xaXtco/cporov shows the intimate bond between Demeter 
and the Mother of the Gods. 103 Dionysus is placed naturally r 
at the side of the former, since his worship, in cult and in; 
legend, is to be classed with that of the Great Mother of 
Phrygia, Rhea's double. 104 Demeter is, indeed, the Earth- 
Mother of Greece, on whose cult ideas were grafted which 

™° Paus. 9. 25, 5-6. 

101 Welcker, Aeschyl. Trilogie, pp. 161-211. He connects the word with 
KaLeiv. 

102 Pindar, Isth. 6. 3. 

103 Cf. Homeric Hymn, 14. 3-4. 

104 On the Phrygian character of the music used in the worship of Dionysus, 
cf. Aristot. Polit. 8. 7, 9. Euripides in the Bacchae completely identifies the 
rites of Dionysus with the Phrygian worship of the Mother. Cf. especially 
lines 58 ff. Euripides in the Helena, 1320 ff., assigns to Demeter all the at- 
tributes of Rhea. Apollodorus tells (3. 5, 1) that Dionysus, driven mad by 
Hera, was cured by Rhea at Cybela in Phrygia, and that he received from her 
woman's attire. 



25 



belonged to the ceremonial of the Mother in Phrygia and 
Lydia. 105 

So it is not strange that the Samothracian goddess closely 
approximates the form of Cybele, and that we find the Ama- 
zons consecrating this island to the Mother of the Gods. 106 
But there is room for much conjecture concerning the meaning 
of the connection between the Amazons and the deity of 
Samothrace. 107 It is probable that there is some bearing on 
this in the legend of the settlement of Samothrace recorded by 
Pausanias. 108 This tells that the people of Samos, driven out 
by Androclus and the Ephesians, fled to this island, and named 
it Samothrace in place of the older name, Dardania. The 
charge which Androclus had brought against the Samian exiles 
was that they had joined the Carians in plotting against the 
Ionians. It would appear then that these colonists of Samo- 
thrace were bound by strong ties, probably of blood, to the pre- 
Ionic population of Ephesus and its environs, by whom the 
shrine of Ephesian Artemis was founded, a shrine indissolubly 
connected with the Amazon tradition. 109 With these facts 
must be considered the opinion of Herodotus that the Samo- 
thracian mysteries were of Pelasgian origin. 
[ In Samothrace there were also Corybantic rites of Hecate. 

105 On the worship of Cybele in Lydia cf. Herod. 5. 102; Paus. 7. 17, 9-10. 
An epitaph by Callimachus (Epigram. 42, p. 308, ed. Ernst) illustrates the 
general resemblance of one orgiastic cult to another. This tells of a priestess 
who had served Demeter of Eleusis, the Cabiri, and, finally, Cybele. Cf. also 
the history of the Metroiim at Athens, which was in earlier times a temple of 
Eleusinian Demeter (Arrian, A. 0; Hesych. s.v. 'EvSave/xos; Dion. Hal. Dein. 
11. p. 658, 3), but served later as temple of the Mother of the Gods, of whom 
Phidias, or Agoracritus, made the statue with tympanum and lions as attributes 
(Arrian, Peripl. 9; Paus. 1. 3, 5; Plin. N. H. 36. 17; Aesch. 1. 60; Diog. Laert. 
6. 2, 3; Epistol. Gr. p. 239; Photius and Suidas s. v. firjrpay^pTijs). 

"6 Diod. Sic. 3. 55. 

107 Kern holds (Arch. Anz. 1893, p. 130) that in the statement of Diodorus 
there is no proved connection between the Amazons and the mysteries of Sa- 
mothrace. 

los Paus. 7. 4, 3. 

109 Cf. ch. Ill on Ephesian Artemis. 



26 



These were performed in the Zerynthian cave, 110 from which 
Apollo and Artemis derived an epithet. 111 The sacrifice of 
dogs to Hecate held a prominent place in these mysteries. 
This sacrificial rite is so infrequent in Greek religion that it 
commands special attention wherever it is found. The 
Corybantic rites of Samothrace show that Hecate of this place 
was closely akin to the goddess of the same name, who was 
worshipped with Zeus Panamerius at Lagina in Caria, the 
chief centre of her cult in Asia Minor. 112 Strabo 113 classes her 
cult as Phrygian-Thracian. Farnell 114 comments on the close 
connection between Artemis Pheraea of Thessaly and this 
j Hecate and suggests Thrace as the home of the cult. Some 
supporting evidence for this opinion may be obtained by 
comparing with the statement that dogs were offered to Hecate 
in Samothrace a remark of Sextus Empiricus, 115 that the 
Thracians used this animal for food. 

In Lemnos there were similar Corybantic rites in honour of 
Bendis, who is thus brought into relationship with Samo- 
thracian Cybele and her reflex Hecate, as well as with Cretan 
Rhea. 116 This "Great Goddess" of Lemnos is Thracian 
Bendis, the fierce huntress of the two spears and the double 
worship, "of the heavens and of the earth," who received 
human sacrifice in her own country. 117 She entered the Greek 
pantheon as Thracian Artemis, closely allied to Cybele and 
Hecate. She has a counterpart in <&(o<r<f)6po<;, from whom the 
Thracian Bosphorus was named, a goddess in whose rites the 
torch has a conspicuous place. 118 

110 Schol. Aristoph. Pax, 276. 

111 Ovid, Trist. 1, eZ/9. 19; Liv. 38. 41. 
* 12 V. supra, n."' 77. 

113 Strabo, p. 473. Cf. rites of Artemis-Hecate, Orph. Argon. 905. 

114 Farnell, op, ext. 2. pp. 504 ff. 
115 Sext. Empir. (Bekker), 174. 

116 Strabo, p. 466: ware nal rd lepa rpbirov rivb. Koivowoieicrdai ravrd re (re- 
ferring to the Corybantic rites of Crete) /cat r(av 'Lafxodpq.Kwv Kal to. iv A-q/jLvcp. 

117 Hesych. s.v. ACKoyxos. 

" 8 Schol. Plato, Republic, 327. Cf. Mommsen, Heort. p. 488. 



27 



Thus a long list may be «iade out of female deities who show 
the general characteristics of Phrygian Cybele: the Lydian 
Mother, Cybebe or Cybele; Rhea of Crete; Hecate of Samo- 
thrace and Lagina; Bendis of Thrace and Lemnos; Cappadocian 
Ma; 119 Britomartis, or Dictynna, of Crete, who is Aphaea at 
Aegina; 120 the Syrian goddess of Hierapolis; 121 several forms of 
Artemis, — of the Tauric Chersonese, of Brauron, of Laodicea, 122 
of Ephesus, 123 Artemis-Aphrodite of Persia. 124 The con- 
ception common to all these is that of a nature-goddess, whose 
rites are orgiastic, and whose protection, as that of a woman- 
l warrior, is claimed for the state. It is probably correct to 
assume that Artemis Tauropolos, to whom Diodorus 125 says 
lithat the Amazons offered sacrifice, is a form of Cybele, 
presumably Tauric Artemis. Therefore this name should be 
added to the list. It deserves special prominence, because the 
Amazons are shown to have been her votaries. In connection 
with Aphrodite, who, like Artemis, although less frequently, 
was identified with the Mother, Arnobius 126 relates that in a 
frenzy of devotion to this deity the daughter of a Gallus cut 
off her breasts, a story strikingly reminiscent of the tradition 
of single-breasted Amazons, and also suggestive of the fact 

119 An inscription from Byzantium (Mordtmann u. Dethier, Epig. v. Byz. 
Taf. 6-8) reads: Mrjrpl Gewv Ma. Cf. Steph. Byz. s.v. Mdaravpa; Strabo, pp. 
535, 537; Paus. 3. 16, 8; Dio Cass. 36B. Cf. article by J. H. Wright, Harv. 
Studies in Class. Philol. 6. 64, on the worship of Ma; Mt^. 

120 Paus. 2. 30, 3. 

121 Pseudo-Lucian, De Dea Syria. The torch belonged to her festival (op. 
cit. 49). 

122 Pausanias (3. 16, 8) identifies Artemis Taurica, Artemis Brauronia, and 
the goddess of Laodicea in Syria. He also says that the original image of 
this cult was claimed by the Laodiceans, the Cappadocians, the neighbours of 
the latter on the borders of the Euxine, the Lydians — who called it Anaiitis — , 
the Spartans — who called it Orthia. 

123 Cf. ch. Ill, Ephesian Artemis. 
™ Paus. 7. 6, 6. 

1 25 Diod. Sic. 2. 46. 

126 Arnob. Adv. Nat. 5. 7. 



28 



that there were Galli in certain forms of Aphrodite's 
worship. 127 

The cult of Cybele seems to have been an indigenous religion 
in Phrygia and Lydia, 128 duplicated in almost all its essential 
details by that of Cretan Rhea. Since the Cretan rites of the 
Mother, in all probability, belonged originally to the Eteo- 
cretan population of the island, a non-Hellenic folk apparently, 
who seem to have been akin to the Asiatic folk not far away, 129 
Rhea-Cybele may fairly be regarded as the deity of a common 
/stock in Crete, Phrygia, and Lydia. From the circumstance 
( that the double-axe is a religious symbol which occurs fre- 
quently wherever there are remains of the pre-Hellenic, or 
"Minoan," civilisation of Crete and of that thence derived, 
the "Mycenaean," and from the fact that in historic times this 
appears as the regular symbol of various forms of the Asiatic 
Mother, 130 there is ground for the inference that the stock with 
j whom the worship of Rhea-Cybele was deeply rooted was that 
j which predominated in Crete and the other lands where the 
\ same brilliant culture flourished before the rise of the Hellenic 
j states. It is to be noted that the battle-axe of the Amazons 
I is this very weapon, but the point may not be pressed in this 
context. Herodotus, 131 it has been seen, asserted out of his 
I knowledge as an initiate, that the mysteries of Samothrace 
were of Pelasgic origin. He undoubtedly conceived of the 
Pelasgians as a non-Hellenic race who preceded the Hellenes 
in the occupation of Greece, and therefore we must interpret 
his remarks about the Cabiria as meaning that these rites were 

127 This comes out strongly in the rites at Bambyce. V. supra, n. 77. 

128 Cf. Strabo, 10. pp. 469, 472; 12. p. 567, wherein the names associated with 
the cult are traced to Phrygian localities. Diod. Sic. (3. 58) derives the name 
of the goddess from a place in Phrygia. On Cybele in Lydia cf. Herod. 5. 102; 
Paus. 7. 17, 9-10. 

™ Strabo, 10. p. 478. V. supra, n. 79. 
130 Kliigmann, op. cit. p. 529. 
«n Herod. 2. 51. 



29 



instituted by a pre-Hellenic people. 132 It is tempting to 
identify this people with the pre-Ionic inhabitants of Samos, 
who, according to Pausanias, 133 settled Samothrace. Thus 
the worshippers of Cybele in Samothrace would be shown to 
be akin to the stock who honoured her in Crete, 134 Lydia, and 
Phrygia. 

This Mother, whose worship was widely spread under her 
own name and many others, was revered by the Amazons: — 
in the primitive baetylic form of the rites of Pessinus; as 
Mother of the Gods in Samothrace, where she was identified 
both with Cabiric Demeter and with Hecate; as Artemis 
Tauropolos, or the Tauric Virgin, who was probably a goddess 
of the Thracians. 135 

m For the views of Herodotus on the Pelasgi cf. 2. 56-58; 7. 94: 8. 44. J. L. 
Myres has an important article, "The History of the Pelasgian Theory," in 
Journ. Hellen. Studies, 27 (1907). 

"» Paus. 7. 4, 3. 

134 The central point of the mysteries of Samothrace seems to have been the 
worship of Demeter as the mother of Plutus. It is interesting to note that this 
son was born in Crete (Hes. Theog. 970). 

1Si Cf. Herod. 4. 103 and the conception of the goddess on which Euripides 
builds his Iphigeneia among the Taurians. Possibly the word Tavp6iro\os is 
to be connected with Taurobolium, the mystic baptism in blood, which was orig- 
inally connected with Syrian cults, especially with that of Mithras. In the 
first half of the second century A.D. it was introduced at Rome as a feature of 
the worship of Magna Mater. On the Taurobolia and the similar Criobolia cf. 
Prudent. Peristeph. 10. 1011-1050. 



CHAPTER III 



Ephesian Artemis 

i The magnificent temple of which Christian writers speak 
as-that of "the great goddess whom all Asia and the world 
worshippeth" replaced the earlier and more famous shrine 
which burned to the ground on the night of Alexander's birth. 
Two hundred and twenty years had been spent in the process of 
building the first temple, and when this was destroyed the 
Ephesians at once began the construction of another even 
more costly. 136 The older Artemisium is said to have possessed 
among its treasures four statues of Amazons executed by four 
of the most distinguished sculptors of the fifth century, 
Phidias, Polyclitus, Cresilas, and Phradmon. 137 The tradition 
is only one of many which indicate very close connection 
between the Amazons and this sanctuary. 

The Ephesians themselves looked upon their Artemisium 
as one of the most sacred spots in the whole world. Tacitus 138 
remarks: "Primi omnium Ephesii adiere, memorantes non, 
ut vulgus crederat, Dianam atque Apollinem Delo genitos: 
esse apud se Cenchrium amnem, lucum Ortygiam, ubi Latonam 
partu gravidam et oleae, quae turn etiam maneat, adnisam, 
edidisse ea numina." This seems to mean that the olive of 
Ephesian Artemis was set up against the palm of Delian Apollo. 
Something of this kind happened historically, as Thucydides 13 • 
shows: "There was of old a great gathering of the Ionians at 

136 On the history of the Artemisium cf. Plin. N. H. 36. 14; Mela, 1. 17; Ptol. 
5; Plut. Alex. 

137 This is Pliny's story (N. H. 34. 53). Students of Greek art are not 
unanimous in believing that four statues were executed. For a well arranged 
bibliography on the question cf. Overbeck, Gesch. d. griech. Plastik, 1. pp. 514 ff. 
and Notes, p. 527. 

138 Tac. Annates, 3. 61. 
"9 Thuc. 3. 104. 

30 



31 



Delos. . . . They went thither to the theoric assembly with 
their wives and children, just as the Ionians now gather at the 
Ephesia." 

Greek Ephesus owed its origin to the Ionic Immigration 
and was reckoned among the twelve cities of Ionia, yet in the 
band of colonists who started out from the Prytaneum at 
Athens the Ionians were few, although the expedition is desig- 
nated by their name. Joined with them were the Abantes of 
Euboea, the Orchomenian Minyae and the Cadmeans of 
Boeotia, the Dryopes, Phocians, Molossians, the Arcadian 
Pelasgians, the Dorian Epidaurians, and other tribes whom 
Herodotus does not mention by name. 140 It may be that the 
Ionian strain was less strong at Ephesus than in some of the 
other cities of the group, since this place and Colophon were 
the only ones of the twelve that did not take part at the 
Apaturia, the great clan festival of the Ionians. 141 Yet the 
Codrids, who figured prominently as conductors of the 
undertaking, were Ionians, 142 and Androclus, son of Codrus 
himself, was by some 143 believed to have been the founder of 
Ephesus. Pausanias was told that he fell in battle against the 
Carians and was shown his tomb at Ephesus. 144 

Pausanias 145 represents Androclus, whom he calls "king of 
the Ionians who sailed to Ephesus," the founder of the Ionic 
city, but he believes the shrine of Artemis there to be very 
ancient. He states with certainty that it antedated the Ionic 
Immigration by many years, being older even than the 
oracular shrine of Apollo at Didymi. He attributes its 
establishment to autochthons, Coresus, 146 who was son of 

Herod. 1. 142, 146. Cf. Paus. 7. 2, 1-4. 

141 Herod. 1. 147. On the Apaturia cf. Ephor. ap. Harpocr. s.v.; Strabo, 9. 
p. 393. 

142 The Codrids were refugees who sought shelter at Athens, having been 
driven out of the Peloponnese by the Dorians (Paus. 7. 1, 9). 

i« Strabo, 12 and 14. Cf. Paus. 7. 2, 6 ff. 
« 4 Paus. 7. 2, 9. 
i« Paus. 7. 2, 6-8. 

146 Herodotus (5. 100) gives Coressus as a place-name in Ephesus. 



32 



Cayster, and Ephesus. He says that the pre-Ionic inhabitants 
of the city were Leleges and Lydians — with a predominance of 
the latter — and that, although Androclus drove out of the 
land all those whom he found in the upper city, he did not 
interfere with those who dwelt about the sanctuary. By 
giving and receiving pledges he put these on a footing of 
neutrality. These remarks of Pausanias find confirmation 
in the form of the cult in historic times, which, being in all 
its essentials non-Hellenic, admits of plausible interpretation 
only as an indigenous worship taken over by the Greek settlers. 

The Artemisium at Ephesus was pre-eminently a shrine 
which gave rights of sanctuary to suppliants, a fact indicative 
of a wide difference between this goddess and the Greek 
Artemis. 147 Those who invoked the protection of the sanc- 
tuary appeared with olive-boughs twined with fillets of wool. 148 
The Amazons are noticed in legend as founders of the 
shrine and as fugitives claiming its asylum. Pindar 149 told 
that they established the sanctuary on their way to Athens 
to war against Theseus. Possibly this is the account followed 

^by Callimachus 150 in the lines telling how the Amazons set up 
the /3/jeVa? of Artemis "in the shade of an oak with goodly 

' trunk 151 which grew in Ephesus by the sea." Justin 152 states^ 
the tradition that the city itself was founded by the Amazons. 
Pausanias 153 maintains that Pindar was incorrect in his 
assertion that the shrine was founded by the Amazons. He 

147 &<tv\ov bk fiivei rb Upbv koX vvv koX irpbrepov (Strabo, p. 641). The shrine 
of Aphrodite Stratonikis at Smyrna was also a place of asylum. Neither Aphro- 
dite nor Artemis appears in such capacity in purely Hellenic cults. 

"» Et. Mag. 402. 20. 

149 Pind. ap. Paus. 7. 2, 7. 

160 Callim. in Dian. 237 ff. 

161 The Greek is 077745 vtt evirpip.vtp. The words hardly bear Farnell's con- 
struction (op. cit. 2. p. 482), "in the trunk of a tree." 

152 Just. 2. 4. So also Hyg. Fab. 237. Cf. St. Basil (s.v. "E0e<ros) and Eust, 
(ad Dion. 823), who give 'Apuxty as daughter of Ephesus and mother of the 
Amazons. Cf. Cram. A. 0. 1. 80. 

"3 Paus. 7. 2, 7-8. 



33 



says that long before they started on their Attic campaign 
they had twice taken refuge at the Artemisium, once from 
Heracles, and, earlier still, from Dionysus. Tacitus, 154 contin- 
uing his quotation of claims put forward by the Ephesians 
themselves, says: "Mox Liberum patrem, bello victorem, 
supplicibus Amazonum, quae aram insederant, ignovisse. 
Auctam hinc concessu Herculis, cum Lydia poteretur, caeri- 
moniam templo." According to this the Amazons inaugurated 
the custom of seeking asylum at the Artemisium, and to them 
therefore was due the conspicuous part which the shrine played 
as a place of sanctuary. It is reasonable to infer from these 
various sources that in the holy records and traditions of the 
Ephesian temple the Amazons were prominent. Even 
Pausanias, who denies that the Amazons founded the shrine, 
ascribes to their fame, since they were reported its founders, 
a large measure of the prestige which belonged to the cult of 
Ephesian Artemis all over the Greek world. He mentions 
this first in his list of reasons for the great reputation of the 
shrine, placing it on a par with the extreme antiquity of the 
sanctuary. Secondary to these two he mentions the wealth 
and influence of the city and the epiphany of the goddess 
there. 155 We must, indeed, believe that the Amazons stood in 
intimate relation to the cult of Ephesian Artemis. Yet in 
historical times there was a regulation which forbade women 
to enter the sanctuary. 156 

Apart from her name it would be difficult to recognise the 
Greek Artemis in the deity of Ephesus. The cult statue 
showed her in form at once primitive and Oriental. 157 It was 
carved out of a block of wood, 158 shaped like a herm in the 

"*Tac. I. c. (Ann. 3. 61). 
* 55 Paus. 4. 31, 8. 

156 Artemid. Oneirocr. 4. 4. Cf., however, Aristoph. Nub. 599-600. 
167 On the statue cf. Aristoph. Nub. 590; Aelian, Hist. Animal. 12. 9; Strabo. 
12. p. 534; 13. p. 650; Autocrates, Tympanistis. 

158 The wood was variously described, as beech, cedar, elm, ebony, grape. 
4 



34 



lower part, showing the feet. The torso was that of a woman 
of many breasts. The type depicted on coins 159 is that of a 
draped woman of many breasts, wearing a turret-crown on 
her head and resting either arm on a twisted column. She 
was served by eunuch priests, called Megabyzi, and by 
maidens. Presumably these priests are the same as the 
Essenes, whom Pausanias mentions as servitors for one year, 
who were bound by strict rules of chastity and required to 
submit to ascetic regulations of dietary and ablution. 160 The 
virgins associated with them passed through three stages: 
Postulant, Priestess, Past-Priestess. 161 There is nothing to 
indicate the length of their term of service. The Megabyzi 
were held in the highest possible honour, 162 as were the Galli at 
Pessinus. 

This goddess of the turret-crown and of many breasts, whose 
shrine required the attendance of the Megabyzi, is certainly a 
form of Cybele. If we were guided solely by the remark of 
Pausanias 163 that the sanctuary was founded by the pre-Ionic 
people of the region, that is, by Leleges and Lydians, among 
whom the latter were more numerous, we should expect to 
find the Lydian Mother worshipped here. The name Artemis, 
under which the goddess appears, indicates that the Greek 
colonists appropriated the cult which they found. The 
Lydian Mother was evidently identical with Magna Mater of 
Phrygia. Yet the Ephesian goddess, who is the Mother 

169 V. coins of Ephesus, Head, Hist. Num. 

160 On the Essenes cf. Paus. 8. 13, 1, where their rule of life is compared to 
that of the servitors of Artemis Hymnia at Orchomenus in Arcadia. The 
Talmud mentions a sect called Essenes, noted for their asceticism. 

161 Plut. An Sen. sit ger. Resp. p. 795D. ;The words are MeWiiprj^Iiprj, Uaptiprj. 

162 The word Megabyzus occurs frequently in Herodotus as a proper name 
among the Persians. Herod. 3. 70, 81, 82, 153, 160; 4. 43; 7. 82, 121. This is 
probably the basis of Farnell's statement (op. cit. 2. p. 481), that the use of the 
word at Ephesus points to Persian influence, which, according to Plutarch 
(Lys. 3) was strong here. Cf. Fairbanks, Greek Religion, App. 1. Strabo, p. 
641. 

Paus. 7. 2, 7-8. 



35 



under the name Artemis, is in her cult image neither Cybele 
as we know her — whether under baetylic form or in the likeness 
of a matron 164 — nor Hellenic Artemis. Artemidorus, 165 the 
student of dreams, says that peculiar sanctity attached to a 
particular type which he defines as that of Artemis Ephesia, 
Artemis of Perge, and the goddess called Eleuthera among the 
Lycians. It is tempting to ascribe to the mysterious Leleges 
the differences which separate the type of Ephesia and the 
other two from Cybele. 

All that Pausanias 166 tells about these Leleges at Ephesus 
is that they were a branch of the Carians. Herodotus 167 says 
that the Leleges were a people who in old times dwelt in the 
islands of the Aegean and were subject to Minos of Crete; 
that they were driven from their homes by the Dorians and 
Ionians, after which they took refuge in Caria and were named 
Carians. It seems reasonable to give weight to the remarks of 
Herodotus on this subject, since he was a Carian-born Ionian. 
We should infer then that the Leleges of Ephesus, whom 
Pausanias calls a branch of the Carians, were closely connected 
with the island-people who were once subject to Minos. Both 
Herodotus 168 and Pausanias 169 say that the Lycians were of 
Cretan origin. It is therefore not strange that at Ephesus 
and in Lycia the same type of goddess was worshipped. 
Tradition 170 also connected Pamphylia with Crete, which 

164 Apart from the baetyl of Pessinus Cybele was regularly conceived as a 
beautiful matron. Cf. statue in Metroiim at Athens. For references v. supra, 
n. 105. 

165 Artem. Oneirocr. 2. 35. 
"« Paus. 7. 2, 8. 

167 Herod. 1. 171. The theory stated here is certainly that which Herodotus 
himself holds. He says that it was the Cretans' story that the Carians claimed 
to be autochthonous. Their tradition emphasised their kinship with the Lydians 
and Mysians. 

"8 Herod. 1. 173. 

« 9 Paus, 7. 3, 7. 

170 The older name of Pamphylia was Mopsopia. Cf. stories of Mopsus, 
son of Cretan Rhacius, Paus. 7. 3, 2. Cf. Mela, 1; Plin. 5. 26. 



36 



may account for the presence of the type in Perge. 171 An 
inscription 172 which dates probably from about the third 
.century B.C. gives direct evidence of association between 
Crete and Ephesian Artemis. It is the dedication of a votive 
offering : " To the Healer of diseases, to Apollo, Giver of Light 
to mortals, Eutyches has set up in votive offering (a statue of) 
the Cretan Lady of Ephesus, the Light-Bearer (avacraav 'E</>ecrou 
KprjcTLav (paecrcfropov) " The inscription suggests the words 
from the Oedipus Rex: 173 " Lyceian Lord, scatter, I pray thee, 
for our aid thine unconquerable darts from thy gold-twisted 
bowstring and with them the fire-bearing rays of Artemis with 
which she rusheth over the Lycian mountains." TheXTetan 
Light-Bearer may easily be the fire-bearing Artemis of Lycia. 
The epithet Av/ceto? used of Apollo gives the form Avicela, for 
Artemis. An Artemis by this name was worshipped at 
Troezen. 174 The local exegetes were unable to explain the 
application of the epithet. Therefore Pausanias conjectures 
that it means, either that Hippolytus had thus commemorated 
the extermination of wolves at Troezen, or that Av/ceia was a 
cult epithet among the Amazons, to whom Hippolytus was 
akin through his mother. It seems highly probable that 
Artemis Avicela was the goddess of Ephesus, Perge, and 
Lycia, who was known as the Cretan Lady of Ephesus. 
* Eleuthera, the special name by which this Artemis was 
I worshipped among the Lycians suggests Ariadne, whom Ovid 175 
' calls Libera. 176 The name belongs to her as the wife of 
Dionysus in Crete. Dionysus appears in the legends of the | 
Artemisium as one of the foes of the Amazons who drove them \ 

171 On the yearly feast of Artemis Pergaea and her mendicant priests, sug- 
gestive of those of Cybele, v. Farnell, op. cit. 2. p. 482. 

172 C. I. G. 6797. 

™ Soph. Oed. R. 204-208. 
™ Paus. 2. 31, 4-5. 

175 Ovid, Fasti, 3. 513. 

176 Cicero (Verr. 4. 48) uses Libera as the name of Proserpine. This doubtless 
is due to the close relation between Demeter and Dionysus. 



37 



to this asylum. 177 Perhaps the idea of hostility on his part 
is to be explained by the rites in his honour at the annual 
festival of the Scierea at Alea. These required that women 
should be scourged at his altar. 178 In this there is reminiscence 
of the Egyptian mournings for Osiris, which were marked with 
practices of self-affliction, and Osiris suggests Atys, the com- 
panion of the Asiatic Mother. 179 There is no reason to doubt 
that Dionysus was closely connected with Cybele. The 
musical system by which his worship was characterised was 
Phrygian, 180 and Euripides in the Bacchae completely identifies 
his rites with those of the Mother. We hear also of men who 
marched in procession at his festivals with cymbals and 
tambourines. 181 Considering the fact that at Ephesus and at 
Pessinus there were eunuch priests, also that Euripides 182 
depicts Dionysus as a womanish person who forces Pentheus 
to assume woman's garments, that elsewhere 183 the god is called 
man and woman, and, in addition to this, that there was a 
legend 184 that he received woman's attire from Rhea at Cybela, 
there is a strong presumption in favour of the hypothesis that 
Dionysus touches the cult of the Great Mother and that of 

177 In addition to the passages already cited (Paus. 7. 2, 7-8; Tac. Ann. 3. 
61) v. Plut. Quaest. Gr. 56. The story of Dionysus and the Amazons appears 
also in art. Cf. Arch. Ztg. 1845, pi. 30, showing sarcophagus from Cortona. 

178 Paus. 8. 23, 1. The chief temples of the place as described by Pausanias 
were of Artemis Ephesia, of Athena Alea, or Hippia {cf. Paus. 8. 47, 1) , of Dio- 
nysus. Possibly the flagellation of women in the Dionysiac mysteries is rep- 
resented on some frescoes recently discovered in a Roman mansion near 
Pompeii (Nation, Dec. 1, 1910, p. 534). V. Am. Jour. Arch. 15 (1911), p. 
567. 

179 Farnell believes that Ariadne was originally a Cretan goddess, who may 
easily have been identified with Cybele, Bendis, etc. {op. cit. 2. p. 473). Pos- 
sibly the legend of Dionysus and Ariadne grew out of the Cretan cult in which 
he was her paredros. 

1 80 Aristot. Polit. 8. 7, 9; Eur. Bacch. 58. 
i gl Herod. 4. 79 ; Athenaeus, 10. p. 445. 
« 2 Eur. Bacch. 821 ff. 

" 3 Aristid. Or. 4. p. 28; Aeschyl. Fr. Edoni ap. Aristoph. Thesm. 135. 
w Apollod. 3. 5, 1. 



38 



Ephesian Artemis in some way associated with the strange 
Oriental idea of confusion of sex. 185 If this interpretation is 
correct, it probably applies also to the rites of Ariadne, for at 
Athens in the feast of the Oschophoria two youths dressed as 
women conducted a chorus in honour of Dionysus and 
Ariadne. 186 

The Ephesian legend of Heracles and the Amazons 187 
probably indicates a connection between the cult of Ephesian 
Artemis and that of the Lydian Heracles. This cult of 
Heracles is reflected in Greek legend as the adventure of the 
hero at the court of Omphale. The story runs thus: 188 
Heracles was compelled to submit to slavery to this Lydian 
queen in order that he might recover from the madness which 
punished him for his murder of Eurytus. Omphale, who was 
daughter of Dardanus and widow of Tmolus, became enam- 
oured of her captive and married him. He gave up to her his 
weapons and received in return woman's dress and the distaff. 
He is represented sitting among the maidens and allowing the 
queen to beat him with her sandals whenever he has erred in 
spinning. The names Dardanus and Tmolus suggest, the 
former, Mount Ida and Samothrace, the latter, Lydia. It 
is noteworthy that Pausanias 189 identifies this Oriental 
Heracles with the Idaean Dactyl of that name. Omphale is 
presumably Magna Mater, and probably the detail of the gift 
of the weapons 190 to her points to the fact that this goddess was 
warlike and political in Asia Minor. In this legend, as also in 
that which connects the Amazons with Dionysus, there 

185 Cf. Atys as notha mulier, Catull. Atys, 27; Adonis, male and female, 
Orph. Hymn, 56. 

186 Plut. Thes. 23. On the rites of Ariadne-Aphrodite at Amathus v. Farnell, 
op. cit. 2. p. 634. Possibly some connection with Dionysus is implied in the 
strange epithet of Ephesian Artemis, 'E\ov<rla, Hesych. s.v. 

" 7 Paus. I. c. (7. 2, 7-8); Tac. I. c. (3. 61). 

1 88 Ovid, Fasti, 2. 305 ff.; Apollod. 1. 9; 2. 7; Diod. Sic. 4; Prop. 3. 11, 17. 

189 V. supra, n. 95. 

190 The battle-axe receives special mention. Cf. double-axe of the Amazons. 



39 



appears the peculiar Asiatic idea of sex-confusion. 191 Granted 
a close connection between the Oriental Heracles and the 
Amazons at Ephesus, 192 the supposition does not seem auda- 
cious that the most widely spread of all the Hellenic traditions 
concerning the Amazons, that of the attack by Heracles on 
Themiscyra, owed its origin to a cult saga typified by that of 
Ephesus. 

To summarise: There was close connection between the 
Amazons and Ephesian Artemis, a type of the Mother showing 
Cretan-Lycian affiliations. Their place in the cult gave risej 
to the two local sagas which emphasise the Oriental idea of , 
sex-confusion. 

191 In a work now out of date (the Lydiaca of Th. Mencke, Berlin, 1843) there 
is valuable information on this subject. V. especially ch. 8. p. 22. 

192 The words of Tacitus (I. c.) representing the tradition at Ephesus itself, 
are very important: " Auctam hinc concessit Herculis, cum Lydia poteretur, 
caerimoniam iemplo." Heraclides Ponticus (Fr. 34), supposing "E0ecros and 
icpeivai to be etymologically akin, derives the name of the city from the attack 
which Heracles made on the Amazons from Mycale to Pitane. 



CHAPTER IV 



Artemis Astrateia and Apollo Amazonius 

Pausanias 193 says that there were two ways of accounting 
for the name of the town Pyrrhichus in southern Greece. One 
derived it from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, the other, from 
Pyrrhichus, a god of "the so-called Curetes. ,, There was also 
a local story that the town was settled by Silenus from Malea. 
Pausanias adds that the people about Malea explained how 
Silenus came to be called Pyrrhichus also, but he does not 
give the explanation. He concludes his remarks about the 
town with these words : " In the market-place there is a well of 
water which they believe was given to them by Silenus. There 
would be a dearth of water, if this well should fail. The gods 
who have sanctuaries in their land are Artemis, surnamed 
Astrateia, because the Amazons here ceased their forward 
march, and Apollo Amazonius. The statues are both xoana, 
and they say that they were set up by the women from the 
Thermodon. ,, 

Thus the sole mention of these two cult-epithets, pre- 
sumably of great value to the investigator of the Amazon 
tradition, occurs in a passage which offers no help toward 
understanding them and in a puzzling context. It is strange to 
hear of the Amazons in Laconia, a canton in no way associated 
with the stock tale, as we know it, of the invasion of Attica. 
The few words in Pausanias suggest that the legend at Pyrrhi- 
chus told of the halting of a large army. In this it would 
differ from the Boeotian tradition 194 of a small band of Amazons 
separated from the rest in their rout by Theseus. There is no 

193 Paus. 3. 25, 1-3. Pausanias quotes Pindar on Silenus, "the zealous 
beater of the ground in the dance." 
» 4 Paus. 1. 41, 7. 

40 



41 



mention of a goal, whether Athens or Troezen, toward which 
the army that halted in Laconia were directing their campaign. 

It seems natural to name Apollo and Artemis together, yet 
the Artemis of Ephesus, with whom the Amazons were closely 
associated, and Artemis Tauropolos, also mentioned as a 
goddess whom they worshipped, are in no way like the com- 
panion of the Hellenic Apollo. The obvious course of reason- 
ing is to assume that Astrateia is the Asiatic Artemis and that, 
therefore, Apollo Amazonius is fundamentally a non-Hellenic 
god. 

Although Apollo is pre-eminently a Greek divinity, the 
same name was used of a god worshipped in the Troad before 
the times of the earliest Aeolic colonisation. The only attri- 
butes of this deity, whose epithet was Smintheus, were 
the bow and the gift of prophecy. 195 Throughout the Iliad 
Apollo appears as a Trojan rather than a Greek ally, a fact not 
without significance to this inquiry. Cicero 196 mentions 
three gods called Apollo: the son of Hephaestus and Athena, 
the son of Corybas, and the son of Zeus and Leto. Of the 
second, who would seem to belong to cults related to that of the 
Mother, it was said that he was born in Crete, and that he 
contended with Zeus himself for the possession of the island. 
He is elsewhere called a son of Corybas, but this is the only 
reference to his struggle with Zeus. 197 This Apollo might 
appropriately be paired with an Artemis of the type of Ephesia. 
The sole hint at a ritual relation between Artemis and Apollo 
at Ephesus is in the inscription quoted above, 198 which records 

196 Iliad, 1. 38-39, and schol. ad I.; ibid. 451; Steph. Byz. s.v. "IXiov, Ttvedos; 
Paus. 10. 12, 1-6. Pausanias (I. c.) gives an account of the Sibyl Herophile, 
conceived to have been the second who filled the office at Delphi. The god 
whom she served was evidently identified with Smintheus. Herophile was 
called in some epic sources Artemis, in others, the wife of Apollo, in others, his 
daughter or a sister other than Artemis. She seems to have been in some way 
connected with Trojan Ida. 

196 Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 3. 57. 

" 7 Cf. Hoeck, Kreta, 3. p. 146. 

198 P. 36. 



42 



the dedication of a statue of "the Cretan Lady of Ephesus, the 
Light-Bearer" to Apollo, "Healer of diseases and Giver of 
Light to mortals." It was found to be not improbable that 
the Cretan Lady was the goddess whom the Lycians wor- 
shipped under the type of Ephesia, and to whom as AvKeta 
Hippolytus dedicated a temple at Troezen. Sophocles 199 
emphasises the bow as the attribute of Apollo Au/eeto?, the 
companion of Artemis of Lycia. With this should be con- 
sidered the fact that Apollo had three oracular shrines in Asia 
Minor, — at Branchidae, Clarus, and Patara in Lycia. Then 
the gift of prophecy as well as the bow, the two attributes of 
Apollo Smintheus may both be assigned to the Lycian Apollo. 
The hypothesis may be stated: that the Phrygian-Lycian 
Apollo, closely allied to Artemis AviceCa, the Lycian type of 
Ephesia, is Apollo Amazonius. The theory tends to reconcile 
two conflicting statements, the one that of Pindar, 200 who 
represents Apollo as friendly to the Amazons, the other that 
of Macrobius, 201 who tells that he assisted Theseus and 
Heracles against them. Apollo, conceived as the Hellenic god, 
would naturally be their enemy, while the Asiatic Apollo 
would be their patron. It is possible to explain in the same 
way the seeming inconsistency shown in representing the 
defeat of the Amazons on the walls of the temple at Bassae. 

It has been assumed in the preceding paragraph that 
Artemis Astrateia, because she is a goddess of the Amazons, 
is practically identical with Ephesia, and on this assumption 
an hypothetical interpretation of Apollo Amazonius has been 
based. In order that the investigation may be pursued from a 
different point of view, this argument may be dismissed for 
the present, to give place to an inquiry concerning the meaning 

199 Soph. I. c. (Oed. R. 204 ff.). The date of Sophocles in the best Greek 
period gives the passage special importance. 
2°° Pind. 01. 8. 47. 
2oi Macr. Saturn. 1. 17-18. 



43 



of Astrateia. Farnell 202 does not discuss the epithet Ama- 
zonius, but for Astrateia he proposes the explanation that the 
word is a linguistic corruption for Astarte. By this theory the 
connection with a a-rpareia denotes only a local attempt to 
account for a word of which the real significance was com- 
pletely lost. The position of Pyrrhichus on the Laconian 
coast makes it easily credible that foreign influences might 
have imported the Semitic goddess. As the theory is put 
forward tentatively, details are not elaborated, and so it is 
not stated whether there is any reason other than caprice for 
connecting the Amazons, rather than another army, with the 
imaginary aTpareCa. Rouse 203 accepts the statement of 
Pausanias as it stands and renders the phrase "Artemis of 
the War-host." 

If Astrateia be "Artemis of the War-host," she was pre- 
sumably an armed goddess. Pausanias 204 records that there 
was a statue of Artemis in Messenia bearing shield and spear. 
At Laodicea there was the conception of an armed Artemis, 
as shown by coins, and since the Laodiceans claimed to possess 
the original cult statue of the Brauronian goddess, 205 who was 
identified with the Tauric Virgin, 206 there is reason to believe 
that these two types of Artemis, Brauronia and Taurica, 
depicted her as an armed goddess. Furthermore, Artemis 
appears as a goddess of battle in her cult as Agrotera, for she 
regularly received sacrifice from the Spartans before a com- 
paign or a battle; 207 at Athens the polemarch, assisted by the 
ephebes, in commemoration of Marathon sacrificed annually 
to her in conjunction with Enyalius; 208 and at Aegaera in 

202 Farnell, op. cit. 2. p. 485. Elsewhere (2. p. 473) Farnell speaks of the 
identification between Artemis and the Semitic goddesses, Astarte, Derceto, 
Atargatis. 

203 Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings, p. 119. 

204 Paus. 4. 13, 1. 

205 Paus. 3. 16, 8. 
2 °* Paus. 3. 16, 7-9. 
2 ° 7 Xen. Hell 4. 2, 20. 
2 °8 Pollux, 8. 91. 



44 



Achaea she was believed to have routed the Sicyonians by 
telling the people of Aegaera to bind torches to the horns of a 
flock of goats in order to terrify the enemy. 209 Artemis Laph- 
ria, a Calydonian deity, is possibly also a goddess of war. She 
is pre-eminently a huntress, and in this respect might resemble 
Thracian Bendis, who entered the Greek pantheon as Artemis. 
Pausanias 210 seems to hint that the type of Laphria is related 
to that of Ephesia. Ephesia and Bendis both are forms of 
the Mother, who in Asia was warlike. 211 

But not one of these epithets of Y> T arlike Artemis is suggestive 
of the word Astrateia. The nearest approach to it is in three 
surnames of Aphrodite, — Strateia at Mylasa, 212 Strategis at 
Paros, 213 and Stratonikis at Smyrna, 214 of which the first is 
startlingly similar to the one under consideration. The only 
epithet among those used of Artemis which recalls Astrateia 
is Hegemone. 

Artemis Hegemone was worshipped at Tegea, at Sparta, 
and near Acacesium in Arcadia. About her cult at Tegea 
there is nothing told which would differentiate this from other 
types. 215 At Sparta she was worshipped with Eileithyia and 
Apollo Carneus in a shrine near the Dromos. m Eileithyia 
seems to have been a primitive goddess, whose worship was 
pre-Hellenic, and who in classical Greek times was identified 
with Artemis as helper of women in travail. 217 The torch was 

209 Paus. 7. 26, 2-3. 

210 Paus. 4. 31, 8. 

211 Farnell (op. cit. 2. p. 471) suggests that Laphria is derived from \d<pvpa. 
For a coin of Messene, which may represent Laphria, showing a woman huntress 
with a spear v. Imhoof-Blumer and Gardner, Numism. Comment, on Paus. 
p. 67, pi. P3. 

212 C. I. G. 2693. 

213 Le Bas, lies, 2062. 

2 " C. I. G. 3137. Cf. Tac. Ann. 3. 63. 

216 Paus. 8. 47, 6. 
21 «Paus. 3. 14, 6. 

217 Cic. De Nat. Deor. 2. 27, 68; Paus. 1. 18, 5; 2. 22, 6-7; 7. 23, 5-7; 8. 21, a 
The Orphic Hymn to Artemis confuses her with Eileithyia and Hecate. 



45 



prominent in her ritual. Apollo Carneiis is generally known 
as the patron of the Dorian race. There are frequent notices 
of him in ancient literature as the god of the conquering people 
of Lacedaemon, a warrior who, like Mars at Rome, presides 
also over the flocks and herds. 218 Yet Pausanias 219 tells a 
story which makes it highly probable that among the pre- 
Dorian folk of Sparta there was a god of prophecy whose 
worship was grafted on that of Hellenic Apollo, whence there 
was formed the type of Carneiis. Pausanias distinguishes 
between a man named Carneiis and Apollo Carneiis. The 
former, who was surnamed CUVera?, lived in pre-Dorian 
Sparta, and was highly honoured in the family of a prophet 
named Crius. In Dorian times there was a prophet of an 
Acarnanian family who w T as killed at Sparta by Hippotes. 
Apollo therefore was wrathful, and the Dorians exiled the 
criminal and atoned for the murder. The cult name of Apollo 
Carneiis was formed from the name of this Acarnanian prophet. 
It will be observed that in both legends there is mention of 
prophecy, a fact strongly suggestive of the Phrygian Apollo. 
Pausanias in this context relates a third story which brings 
Apollo Carneiis into direct connection with Troy. He tells 
that when the Greeks were making the wooden horse, they 
used wood of a cornel-tree (/cpdveta) cut in the sacred grove 
of Apollo. As soon as they learned that the god was angry 
at their presumption they propitiated him under the name 
Carneiis. It seems not unreasonable to infer from these three 
legends that, although Apollo Carneiis came to be regarded 
as the Dorians' god, he was in a measure identical with the 
prophet-god of Phrygia and Lycia. The inference is strength- 

118 On the Carnea, the chief festival of Sparta, v. Herod. 7. 206; 8. 72. This 
festival commemorated the Dorian conquest. Therefore during its celebration 
the people remained under arms and lived camp life. The feast was also one 
of harvest. Cf. the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles for a striking parallel. V. 
Mommsen, Heort. 

219 Paus. 3. 13, 3-5. 



46 



ened by a fourth account in the same context. In this 
Pausanias quotes Praxilla, who said that Carneiis was from 
Crete, since he was the son of Europa and Zeus, foster-child of 
Apollo and Leto. In further support of the theory, here 
stated tentatively, it should be added that Acarnania, the 
home of the prophet who was killed at Sparta by the Dorians, 
was the country of the Curetes, conceived as one of the pre- 
Hellenic races of Greece. 220 Their name points to Crete. It 
must also be said that many believed Eileithyia to be of Cretan 
origin. 221 Thus Eileithyia, the third in the group worshipped 
at Sparta, may have been connected with the cult of the 
Apollo of Phrygia, Lycia, and Crete. In the shrine of Artemis 
Hegemone near Acacesium the cult statue showed the goddess 
with torches in her hands. 222 This temple gave access to the 
sanctuary of Despoena, 223 in which Demeter was worshipped 
as the mother of Despoena. The cult legend made Artemis 
the child of Demeter rather than of Leto. Therefore beside 
the throne of Demeter there was a statue of Artemis, who was 
represented as a huntress with quiver, hunting dog, and a 
mantle of stag's skin. In one hand she carried a torch, in the 
other two serpents. Since the temple of Artemis Hegemone 
gave access to this shrine, and since in the attribute of the 
torch the statue in the inner sanctuary resembled that in 
the outer temple, it seems probable that the Artemis of the 
Despoena temple was Artemis Hegemone. In this sanctuary 
the Great Mother was worshipped with Demeter and Des- 
poena, and the initiates heard holy tales about the Titanes, 224 
Curetes, and Corybantes, all of whom were connected with 

220 Paus. 8. 24, 9. Apollo is called the patron of the Curetes against the 
Aetolians, Paus. 10. 31, 3. 

221 V. references in n. 217. 

222 Paus. 8. 37, 1. 

223 On the sanctuary of Despoena v. Paus. 8. 37, 1 ff . 

224 On the Titanes v. J. E. Harrison, British School Annual, 1908-09, pp. 
308-338. 



47 

orgiastic rites— the first, with those of Dionysus, the second 
and third, with those of Rhea-Cybele. It would follow that 
Artemis Hegemone belonged to the circle of deities honoured 
by mystic ceremonies like those of Crete and Asia Minor. 
Miss Harrison 225 mentions the torch as a conspicuous feature 
in the cult .of Artemis Hegemone and connects her closely with 
Hecate who was $><D<r$6po<$ on the shores of the Thracian 
Bosphorus. The identification between Hecate and the 
Mother has already been noticed. 226 

The investigation of Hegemone as an epithet would be 
incomplete without the mention of the use of the word in 
three other instances: alone, as the name of a goddess; as 
surname of Aphrodite; in adjectival form 'HyefJLovios as an 
epithet of Hermes. The first of these shows Hegemone as the 
name of one of the divinities by whom the Athenian ephebes 
swore: "Be ye judges of the oath, Agraulus, Enyalius, Ares, 
Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone." 227 Agraulus, Thallo, Auxo, 
and Hegemone appear to have been old deities of the soil. 
Pausanias 228 gives Thallo as one of the two Horae whom the 
Athenians worshipped with Pandrosus. He gives Auxo and 
Hegemone as the two Charites who had been revered at 
Athens from of old (i/c irakaLov) . 229 The evidence for the 
worship of Aphrodite Hegemone is an altar basis found on the 
Acropolis at Athens with the inscription: 'A^poSlrr) rjyefwvr) 
rod SrjfjLov.™ Epigraphical evidence also furnishes the epithet 
Hegemonius with Hermes. The inscription 231 comes from the 

226 Harrison and Verrall, Myth, and Mons. of Anc. Athens, p. 383. 

226 Ch. II, The Great Mother. 

227 Pollux, 8. 106. 

228 Paus. 9. 35, 1-7. The other Hora was Carpo. 

229 With Paus. 9. 35, 1-7 cf. Herod. 2. 50. Pausanias ascribes to Eteocles of 
Orchomenus the introduction of three Charites. Herodotus names the Charites 
among the aboriginal deities of the Hellenes. 

230 C. I. A. 4. 2, 1161 b; Lolling in Ac\t. "Apx. 1891, pp. 25 ff., 126 ff ; Ho- 
molle in Bull, de Correspondance Hellen. 15 (1891), pp. 340 ff. 

231 C. I. A. 2. 741, Fr. a, 20; b, 14, 1207, 7; Judeich, Topographie v. Athen 
(Miiller's Handb. d. Mass. Altertumsw. 3. 2, 2) p. 400. 



48 



site of the Metroiim at the Piraeus, where Atys was worshipped 
with the Mother, and it is therefore presumable that this 
Hermes belongs in some way to this Asiatic cult. 

It is possible to interpret Hegemone as an epithet indicating 
warlike character. The phrase, "leader of the people," 
applied to Aphrodite at Athens, suggests this. The Hege- 
mone whom the ephebes invoked may have been regarded as 
such a leader. That as a Charis she was a primitive goddess 
of the soil tends to support the theory, inasmuch as early 
divinities are frequently both givers of fertility and protectors 
of their people in battle. It has been seen that this was the 
case with Apollo Carneiis at Sparta. It is noteworthy that 
there he was associated with Artemis Hegemone. This 
combination of qualities is displayed by the Great Mother and 
those resembling her. It has been noted that the Arcadian 
cult of Artemis Hegemone was in some way closely related to 
that of Despoena, a goddess whose rites were connected with 
the Corybantic rites of Demeter and the Asiatic Mother. 
Furthermore, the likeness between Artemis Hegemone and 
Hecate confirms the theory. 

But whether Artemis Hegemone gained her epithet from a 
warlike character or not, she is undeniably a goddess whose 
attribute was the torch, and in this she approaches several of 
those forms of Artemis which are admitted to be martial. 232 
Artemis Agrotera was a huntress like the Artemis, probably 
Hegemone, beside the throne of Demeter in the sanctuary of 
Despoena. Like her, and also like the Artemis of the outer 
shrine, who was certainly Artemis Hegemone, she was a god- 
dess of the torch. The fact comes out in the story of the rout 
of the Sicyonian army at Aegaera. In the version which the 
Pseudo-Plutarch gives of the ceremony in which the Polemarch 
and ephebes sacrificed at Athens in memory of Marathon he 
substitutes Hecate for Artemis Agrotera, the name given by 

232 On the types of warlike Artemis v. sujyra, pp. 43-44. 



49 



Pollux. Artemis Laphria, who seems to have resembled 
Ephesia, was honoured at Patrae in Achaea in an annual 
festival of fire. 233 Into an enclosure about her altar all sorts 
of wild beasts were driven to be burned alive. Like Agrotera 
and, presumably, like Hegemone, she was a huntress. An- 
other huntress was Thracian Bendis, who was nearly related to 
Hecate and the Mother, and who was taken over by the 
Greeks as a form of Artemis. Her rites required torches. 234 

The torch does not appear as a feature in the Hellenic 
worship of Artemis until the fifth century B.C. After that 
its connection with the cult becomes steadily more and more 
prominent. Its association with this goddess may be traced 
historically to the influence of orgiastic rituals from Thrace and 
Asia Minor, like those of the Mother and Dionysus, and it is 
to be explained by the tendency to identify Artemis with 
various forms of Magna Mater. 235 The inference is inevitable, 
that the three types of Artemis, — Agrotera, Hegemone, and 
Laphria — approach one which may be called Thracian- 
Phrygian, probably that of Hecate, in so far as she is similar to 
Cybele. These three forms of Artemis are warlike in char- 
acter, but it is impossible to state with certainty that any one 
of them was represented in the cult image as an armed goddess. 
Such a statement can be made only of the statue of Artemis at 
Laodicea and of that which Pausanias saw at Messene. We 
possess no further record of the latter, but we are practically 
sure that the former was the type surnamed Taurica and 
Brauronia. 236 Since the home of this cult was the Tauric 
Chersonese, where the goddess was called the Virgin, the type 
must be classed as Thracian, and since it resembles that of 
Rhea-Cybele and Artemis Ephesia, it may properly be called 
Thracian-Phrygian. Thus not only the forms of Artemis 

233 Paus. 7. 18, 11-13. 

234 -por references v. n. 118. 

235 Cf. Farnell op. cit. 2. pp. 474-475. 

236 V. n. n. 122, 205. 
5 



50 



which imply a warlike character, but also those which repre- 
sented her armed, indicate that the cult came from the coun- 
tries where the chief deity was a woman, both Mother and 
Warrior. It follows, that if Artemis Astrateia be Artemis " of 
the War-host," she is closely akin to the type of the Mother. 
In other words, she is, as it was at first conjectured, very like 
Ephesia and Tauropolos. 

It remains to consider the possibility that she is Astarte. 
Cicero 237 remarks that Astarte of Syria was identified with 
Aphrodite, and that in this conception she appears as the wife 
of Adonis. Herein the type of Aphrodite approximates that 
of Cybele in Lydia and Phrygia where Atys corresponds to 
Adonis. At Hierapolis the Syrian goddess described by the 
Pseudo-Lucian has characteristics of Artemis as well as 
Aphrodite. In these rites the torch was a prominent feature, 
as in those of the Thracian-Phrygian Mother. Thus Artemis 
Astarte might be precisely the same as Warlike Artemis. 
Moreover, even if the goddess at Pyrrhichus were an Astarte 
more similar to Aphrodite than to Artemis, the probabilities 
would be strong in favour of the theory that she was armed, 
for the cult epithet of Aphrodite-Astarte in Greek religion was 
Urania, of whom there is reason to believe that she was the 
armed Aphrodite. 238 So from two hypotheses, the one, that 
Artemis Astrateia is Warlike Artemis, the other, that she is 
Astarte, 239 the inference is to be drawn that the image at 
Pyrrhichus showed her armed. 

On the assumption that the goddess was armed it is reason- 
able to suppose that an armed god was grouped with her. It 
is easy to imagine the Hellenic Apollo defending his people, 

237 Cic. De Nat. Deor. 3. 23, 59. 

238 Cf. Paus. 1. 14, 7; 3. 23, 1. V. infra, ch. V, Ares. 

239 Possibly there is some support for Farnell's hypothesis, that Astrateia 
is a corruption for Astarte, in the words of St. Stephen's sermon recording the 
apostasy of the Jews to the Syrian goddess: iarpetyev 5£ 6 0e6s teal iraptdojKev 
ai/Toiis Xarpeieiv r% <jt pariq. rod oipavov, Acts, 7. 42. 



51 



inspiring them with courage, and visiting their enemies with 
pestilence, yet he is not a truly martial deity under any one of 
these conceptions. However, his worship at Sparta as 
Carneus has reminiscence of a time when he was regarded as a 
fighting god. Comment has already been made 240 on the 
indications that Carneus was a pre-Dorian divinity of prophecy 
whom the Hellenes identified with their Apollo. The Phrygian 
god to whom he was very possibly related was a warrior in so 
far as the bow was as fixedly his attribute as the mantic gift. 
Near Sparta there was the shrine of another Apollo, 241 por- 
trayed in rude and primitive fashion in the form of a colossal 
bronze column, to which were added the head, hands, and 
feet of a man. The figure wore a helmet, and in his hands he 
carried spear and bow. Amyclae, the village to which his 
sanctuary belonged, was one of the pre-Dorian cities which 
had held out valiantly, but had finally been devastated by the 
invaders. 242 Here there was preserved down to the time of 
Pausanias a sanctuary of Alexandra, so-called by the Amy- 
claeans, who was said to be Priam's daughter Cassandra. 243 
At Leuctra in Laconia this Alexandra had a temple and image, 
and here there were xoana of Apollo Carneus, " made after the 
custom of the Lacedaemonians of Sparta." 244 Cassandra is 
conspicuously a prophetess who belongs to Troy and to 
Trojan Apollo, and therefore a relation between her cult and 
that of Carneus, a god who seems to have been originally 
identical with the prophetic Apollo of Phrygia, Lycia, and 

240 V. supra, pp. 45-46. 

241 Paus. 3. 18, 6-19, 5. V. Frazer's commentary on the passage. 

242 Paus. 3. 2, 6; 3. 19, 6. 

243 Paus. 3. 19, 6. There was a dispute between Amyclae and Mycenae, 
each of them claiming to possess the tomb of Cassandra (Paus. 2. 16, 6). The 
word Alexandra suggests the Trojan name of Paris. It implies a woman warrior, 
or one averse to marriage. In the latter connotation it suggests Cassandra's 
refusal to marry Apollo after she had obtained from him the gift of prophecy ; 
it suggests also the other famous story of the sacrilege of Ajax. 

244 Paus. 3. 26, 5. 



52 



Crete, 245 is natural. Apollo Amyclaeus resembles this Cretan- 
Asiatic Apollo in the attribute of the bow, and the helmet and 
spear betray his relation to Apollo Carneiis. Moreover, since 
at Leuctra in Laconia there was evidently a connection 
between the rites of Cassandra and Apollo Carneiis, the 
inference may be drawn that at Amyclae she stood in ritual 
relation to the local god. It would follow that Apollo Amy- 
claeus was in some way a prophet, and thus in another detail 
Amyclaeus resembles the pre-Dorian Carneiis. The festival 
of the Hyacinthia, which belonged to the Amyclaean cult, gave 
temporary freedom to the slaves of the region about Sparta 
and was a great holiday among the humbler freemen. It 
seems probable therefore that the feast was derived from the 
religion of the submerged element of the population, i. e. from 
the conquered aborigines. In its mystic imagery of the 
processes of life and death there is the hint that it was insti- 
tuted in honour of a chthonic deity of fertility. 246 The legends 
of Amyclae certainly told of a period when the place was 
influential before the Dorian Invasion, and so presumably the 
worship of Apollo Amyclaeus was instituted by the pre-historic, 
or "Mycenaean," inhabitants of Laconia, whose civilisation, 
revealed in the artistic remains of Vaphio and in the myth of 
the royal house of Menelaus, was homogeneous with that 
termed "Minoan." The chief points in the argument are 
that Apollo Amyclaeus was portrayed in non-Hellenic fashion, 
that he was conceived, like Carneiis, as warrior and god of 
fertility, and that in general characteristics he seems to have 

245 From the Agamemnon of Aeschylus it is to be inferred that the cult epi- 
thets of Trojan Apollo were Loxias and Agyieus, the names by which Cassandra 
cries to him. Loxias has the same significance, Eumen. 19. 

246 On the Hyacinthia v. Paus. 3. 19, 3-4; Athen. 4; Ovid, Met. 10. 219. In 
the Laconian myth Hyacinthus was the son of Amyclas, one of the autochtho- 
nous kings of Sparta. He became the favourite of Apollo, by whom he was 
accidentally slain. The legend presents parallels to the story of Agdistis and 
Atys and that of Aphrodite and Adonis. On the tale v. Paus. 3. 1, 3; 3. 10, 1. 
A legend of Salamis connected the origin of the hyacinth with the death of Ajax. 



53 



been identical with the prophet-archer worshipped in Asia and 
in Crete. 

Thus various trains of thought converge to establish the 
theory that the deities whom the Amazons were said to have 
introduced at Pyrrhichus were a warrior woman and a warrior 
man. The former seems to have been akin to Cybele, the 
Tauric Virgin, Ephesian Artemis, and others of the general 
type which includes these, the latter, to the god who was 
worshipped by the same pre-Hellenic peoples who evolved or/ 
perpetuated the rites of the Mother. He is a male divinity 
of battle and fertility, who was originally of secondary imj 
portance to the female. The mantic gift which belongs td 
him fits in well with the clamour which accompanied the ceref 
monies of the Mother in historical times and with the sense of 
possession by divine power which seized upon her worshipper^. 
As Aeschylus clearly shows in the character of Cassandra, th 3 
skill of prophecy is divine madness. Frenzy was prominent 
in all orgiastic cults. 

With the thought in mind that Artemis Astrateia and Apollo 
Amazonius are gods of the race who lived in Laconia before 
the Hellenes, it is important to examine the brief account which 
Pausanias furnishes of Pyrrhichus. 247 The town was said to 
have been named either from Pyrrhus or from Pyrrhichus, 
the latter a god of the so-called Curetes. It is natural that 
the epic tales about the house of Menelaus at Sparta should 
have been in vogue elsewhere in Laconia. Therefore the story 
of the coming of Pyrrhus to wed Hermione was associated with 
Pyrrhichus and also with Scyra 248 on a river not far away. 
Pausanias, however, puts more confidence in the other account 
of the name of the town. 

The theory that Pyrrhichus was a god of the so-called 
Curetes implies that these are here conceived to be a primitive 

* 7 Paus. I. c. (3. 25, 1-3). 
a« Paus. 3. 25, 1. 



54 



folk. The only region of Greece to which an early people of 
this name may be assigned with certainty is the land north of 
the Corinthian gulf. Apollodorus 249 states that the older 
name of Aetolia, regarded as the tract extending from the 
Evenus to the Acheloiis, was Curetis, and Pausanias 250 tells 
that the Curetes were the earliest inhabitants of Acarnania. 
In the legend of Meleager, as it is preserved in the Iliad, 2bl the 
Curetes are shown besieging Calydon, the Aetolians' city. 
The dispute had arisen over the division of the spoils of the 
famous boar-hunt. The death of Meleager, who gives his 
life for the city, is ascribed in the Homeric version to the 
prayers of his mother Althaea, who had cried on Hades and 
Persephone to destroy him in vengeance for his having slain 
her brother, a prince of the Curetes. Pausanias 252 quotes the 
Eoeae of Hesiod and the Minyad as authorities for the state- 
ment that he was killed by Apollo, the patron of the Curetes 
against the Aetolians. In the Homeric story there is a hint 
that Apollo was unfriendly to the Calydonians, This is in 
the reference to the presumption of Idas, who attempted to 
shoot Apollo who had ravished his wife Marpessa. By Idas 
she was mother of Cleopatra, the wife of Meleager. Heroic 
legend shows many connections between this region of Acar- 
nania and Aetolia and that of Messenia and Laconia. At the 
Calydonian chase, in which the Curetes and Aetolians were 
allies, Idas and Lynceus of Messenia and their Laconian 
cousins and rivals, Castor and Polydeuces, were among the 
assembled chiefs who took part. 253 Idas was connected with 
the house of Calydon by marriage with Marpessa. 254 Thes- 

2 « ApoUod. 1. 7, 6. 

230 Paus. 8. 24, 9. It is interesting to compare the suggestion that the Cabiri 
were a primitive folk of Boeotia (Paus. 9. 25, 6). 

251 II 9. 527-599. Cf. Bacchylides, 5. 76-164. 

252 Paus. 10. 31, 3. 

253 Apollod. 1. 8, 2; Ovid, Met. 8. 300; Hyg. Fab. 173. 

254 Iliad* 9. 557-560; ApoUod. 1. 7, 9; Schol. Iliad (Ven.), 9. 553; Schol. 
Pind. Isth. 4. 92 (quoting Bacchylides). 



55 



tius, brother to Marpessa's father and king of Pleuron, the 
city of the Curetes, married his daughter Althaea to Oeneus 
of Calydon 255 and his daughter Leda to Tyndareus of Sparta. 256 
Thus the Dioscuri, Leda's children, were related to the 
Curetes of northern Greece. These genealogies originated 
doubtless in racial affinities between the pre-Dorians of Laconia 
and Messenia and the early folk of Acarnania and Aetolia. 
In pre-historic times Messenia and Laconia seem to have been 
one country, founded by Lelex, locally known as an autoch- 
thon, and its name was Lelegia. 257 The Dioscuri were wor- 
shipped from of old both in Messenia and in Laconia as Oeol 
fieyaXoL, and as such they were easily confused with the Cabiri 
and also with the Idaean Dactyli. 258 Thus the argument 
leads to a connection between this folk called Curetes and the 
people among whom the orgiastic worship of the Mother was 
indigenous, and so it seems natural that the armed dancers who 
attended Cretan Rhea should have been named Curetes. The 
mention of the Leleges in Laconia and Messenia establishes 
direct connections with the pre-historic "Aegean" civilisation, 
which was tributary to the "Minoan," and also with the early 
races by whom the sanctuary of Ephesian Artemis was 
founded. 259 

There are the same implications in the statement 260 that 
Pyrrhichus, a god of these Curetes, was another name for 
Silenus. The oldest and most persistent legends in regard to 
Silenus connect him with the country about the Maeander in 
Phrygia. 261 He belongs to the rites of Dionysus, which were 
intimately related to those of the Mother. The Cabiric 

255 Iliad, 9. 565-572; Apollod. 1. 8, 1; Eurip. Meleager, Ft. 1. 

2 56 Schol. Ap. Rh. 1. 146. 
257Paus. 3. 1, 1; 4. 1, 1. 

258 V. supra, ch. II, p. 23. Cf. Paus. 10. 38, 7. V. Toepffer, Attische Genea- 
logie, p. 220. 

259 V. supra, ch. Ill, pp. 35 ff. 

260 Pind. ap. Paus. I. c. (3. 35, 2). 

261 Herod. 7. 26; 8. 138; Paus. 1. 4, 5; 2. 7, 9. 



56 



mysteries probably combined the cult of a form of the Mother 
with that of Dionysus, whence arose the story that Dionysus 
was the son of Cabirus. 262 Dioscuri, Cabiri, Anaces, Dactyli 
are all in a certain sense the same. Hence we may think of 
this Pyrrhichus as a pre-Dorian, or "Lelegian," member of 
the circle of deities among whom the Mother was chief. He 
was probably at once Cabirus, Dactyl, and armed dancer. 
That he was the last is implied not only by his place among the 
Curetes, but also by the fact that his name is that of the 
famous dance at Sparta. 263 

The study of the Curetes of Laconia yields evidence in 
accord with that gathered from other courses of reasoning 
adopted above. The forerunners of the Hellenes in Laconia 
seem to have been akin to the people of Acarnania, where 
Apollo was the patron of the Curetes, the original home of the 
prophet Carneus. They seem also to have been related to the 
race who worshipped the Mother under the type of the goddess 
of Ephesus. 

It must be concluded, therefore, that Artemis Astrateia was 
a form of Ephesia, and that Apollo Amazonius was the prophet- 
archer who was worshipped with her at Ephesus, and whose 
cult belonged to Phrygians, Lycians, Cretans, and the pre- 
Hellenic folk of Greece. 

"2 Cic. De Nat. Deor. 3. 23, 58. 

263 Athenaeus (Deipnosoph. 14. 7) ascribes the invention of the Pyrrhic dance 
to Athena. Plato (Legg. 796 B) says that after the gigantomachy she imparted 
the rite to the Dioscuri. It is noteworthy that Melampus by a dance cures the 
Proetides whom Dionysus has driven mad (Apollod. 2. 3, 7), and that by some 
theologians Melampus was reckoned as a Dioscurus along with Alco and Tmolus, 
sons of Atreus (Cic. De Nat. Deor. 3. 21, 53). Dionysus himself was sometimes 
classed as a Dioscurus, i. e. at Athens in the worship of the Anaces (Cic. I. c.) . 



CHAPTER V 



Ares 

The legend of the Amazons was not superficially rooted at 
Athens. This is proved by the fact that it found expression 
in cult practice at one of the greater festivals of the state. 
Before the Thesea the Athenians annually offered sacrifice to 
the Amazons, thus commemorating the victory of Theseus 
over the women. The decisive battle was said to have been 
fought on the day marked by the oblation of the Boedromia. m 
Plutarch 265 bases his belief in the reality of the invasion of 
Attica on three points: the place names, Amazonium and 
Horcomosium; the presence of graves of the fallen; the yearly 
sacrifice to the Amazons. 

The general view of ancient writers 266 is that the Amazons 
made the Areopagus the basis of their operations, having 
established their camp there in a spot thenceforth called the 
Amazonium. 267 Aeschylus 268 derives the name of the hill 
itself from the fact that there the Amazons offered frequent 
sacrifice 269 to Ares while they held it as a citadel against the 
Acropolis. The statement is remarkable in view of two facts 
which seem to show Ares as the patron of Theseus rather 

2 « 4 Plut. Thes. 27. 

265 Yot Plutarch's version of the invasion (quoting Clidemus for details) 
v. Thes. 26-28. He finds it difficult to believe that a band of women could 
have conducted a campagn on the scale described in the current accounts, but 
finally accepts the fact. He doubts only the statement of Hellanicus, that they 
crossed the Cimmerian Bosphorus on the ice. 

266 Plut. I. c; Diod. Sic. 4. 28, 2, 3; Apollod. Epit. 1. 16; Aeschyl. Eum. 675 ft*. 

267 On the site v. Judeich, Topog. v. Athen, p. 269. 

268 Aeschyl. Eum. 685-690. 

269 The Greek is: ir6\iv pcotttoKiv \ T-fjvb' wf/iirvpyov avreirvpywcrav rbre, \*Apet 8' 
%dvov. It seems proper to contrast the imperfect idvov with the aorist 
dvT€irijpyu}<rav. 

57 



58 



than of the Amazons: Plutarch, 270 quoting Clidemus, says that 
before entering the critical battle with the Amazons Theseus 
sacrificed to Phobus, son of Ares, and hereby won the day; the 
tradition 271 at Troezen told that Theseus commemorated his 
victory over the Amazons there by dedicating a temple to Ares 
at the entrance to the Genethlium. 

It is therefore impossible to determine the exact relation 
in which Ares stood to the Amazons in the story of the invasion 
of Greece. All that may be said is that his name belongs to 
the saga of Theseus and the Amazons in the two accounts, the 
Attic and the Troezenian. It must be added that the saga 
bears the marks of great age. Herein Theseus is not an 
intruder, as he evidently is in the tales of the storm of Themis- 
cyra, nor is he a substitute for Heracles. The story is pri- 
marily concerned with Theseus himself, the great hero of the 
two states. While in the former it is connected with ritual 
acts, in the latter it is hallowed by association with the 
Genethlium, the traditional birth-place of Theseus. 272 More- 
over, on the tradition of the Amazons at Troezen rests the 
story of Hippolytus, whose sepulchre assured the safety of 
the nation. 273 

The Attic traditions about Theseus were concerned chiefly 
with his adventures in Crete. With retrospect toward these 
the Athenians celebrated the festivals of the Oschophoria, the 
Pyanepsia, and the Thesea. Ariadne, as it has been stated, 274 
was probably a Cretan goddess, with whose worship at Athens 
are to be connected the rites of the Oschophoria, wherein two 
youths disguised as maidens led the girls' chorus. The impli- 

270 Plut. I. c. The verb is that employed of chthonic sacrifice, <r<payidfa. 
On Phobus v. Iliad, 13. 299. 
27 * Paus. 2. 32, 9. 

272 Cf. S. Wide, De Sacris Troezeniorum, Hermionensium, Epidauriorum, pp. 
12 ff. 

273 Frazer, Pausanias, 3. p. 281. 

274 V. supra, ch. Ill, p. 38. For further references on the Oschophoria, v. J. 
E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 79 ff. 



59 



cation is that the Oriental idea of sex confusion was associated 
with the festival. It seems therefore that the ceremonies 
instituted by Theseus reflect the Anatolian worship of Cybele. 
It accords with the customary restraint of Hellenic habits 
that the Oriental idea shown in the cults of Cybele, Ephesian 
Artemis, and the Syrian Goddess, manifested itself at Athens 
merely in a pleasing masque. The name of Theseus also 
connected Troezen with Crete. Phaedra, the wife with whom 
he lived at Troezen, is famous as the destroyer of the Amazon's 
son, Hippolytus, and as another princess of the house of Minos. 
Thus in its twofold aspect the tradition of Theseus suggests 
the time when "Minoan" Crete was pre-eminent. It may be 
that the association of the Amazon legend with the tale of 
Theseus is to be ascribed to some such source. In that case 
Ares, a deity whose cult had slight prominence in Greece, 
might by reason of his place in the saga of Theseus and the 
Amazons, be connected with the cult of Aphrodite-Ariadne. 
There is this suggestion in a note from Olen which Pausanias 275 
inserts in the account of his visit to the shrine of Hebe at 
Phlius. Olen connects Ares with Hebe as her own brother, 
born of Hera. Her shrine at Phlius is shown to be very old 
by the fact that her worship here was in the strictest sense 
aniconic. Her annual festival of the "Ivy-Cuttings" has a 
hint of Dionysus and even of the ivy-shaped shields of the 
Amazons. From other sources it may be gathered that she 
was akin to Aphrodite-Ariadne. 276 Pausanias says that Hebe 
was substituted for her more ancient name, Ganymeda. In 
this there is reminiscence of the Trojan youth caught up to 
heaven by Zeus. The feminine form implies the appropriation 
by one sex of the characteristics of the other. This might 
belong naturally to a Phrygian legend. 

A search for parallels to the association which Aeschylus 

2™ Paus. 2. 13, 3-4. 

276 On this point v. Farnell, op. cit. 1. p. 200; 5. p. 126. 



60 



mentions between Ares and the Amazons discovers first of all, 
as most striking, the legend told of the statue of Ares Tvvai/co- 
6oLvas in the market-place at Tegea. 277 The statue was 
explained as the dedication of a band of Tegeate women who 
had won a victory over the Spartans in the time of King 
Charillus of Sparta. After peace was established the women 
instituted a festival in honour of Ares. Since men were ex- 
cluded from the sacrifice and sacred banquet, the god was 
called "Entertainer of Women." It is interesting to find such 
a tale in Arcadian Tegea, the home of Atalanta, herself similar 
to the Amazons. It is worth bearing in mind that Atalanta 
won the spoils of the Calydonian hunt in the country of the 
Aetolians and Curetes, the kindred of the folk of pre-historic 
Pyrrhichus. In the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, which 
contained these spoils, 278 Marpessa, leader of the women who 
honoured Ares, dedicated her shield. 279 

In the immediate neighbourhood of Tegea there was a 
shrine of Ares 'A(/>zW?, 280 situated on a mountain of which the 
name Cresium implies the worship of Cretan Dionysus. 281 
The epithet was explained by the story that Ares enabled his 
child Aeropus to draw milk from the breasts of his mother 
after her death. The mother Aerope, grand-daughter of Aleus, 
was akin to Atalanta. The lifetime of her child by Ares was 
placed in the generation preceding the Dorian Invasion. 282 

Elsewhere in Arcadia, — at Megalopolis 283 and near Aca- 
cesium 284 — there were monuments attesting the foundation of 
the cult of Ares in this canton in early days. With this 

2" Paus. 8. 48, 4-5. 

278 Paus. 8. 47, 2. 

279 Paus. 8. 45, 5. 
28" Paus. 8. 44, 7-8. 

281 On Dionysus Kp^trios v. Paus. 2. 23, 7-8. 

282 Paus. 8. 45, 3. 

283 Paus. 8. 32, 3. The reference is to an altar of Ares said to be old. 

284 Paus. 8. 37, 12. The reference is to an altar of Ares in the temple of 
prophetic Pan above the shrine of Despoena. 



61 



should be compared the statement of Arnobius, 285 that there 
was a legend of thirteen months' servitude exacted of Ares in 
Arcadia. The general tendency of all the evidence is in 
support of the theory that the cult of Ares Tvvcuicodoivas 
originated in primitive times. 

There were two other legends of armed women in Greece, 
both localised, like the Tegeate story, in the Peloponnese. 
A statue of Ares at Argos was explained as the dedication of a 
band of women under the poetess Telesilla who had won a 
victory over the Spartans. 286 The other legend belonged 
to Sparta. Here a troop of women commemorated their 
victory over the Messenians by founding a temple to Aphro- 
dite 'Apeia. 2 * 7 The most obvious interpretation of the 
epithet is to derive it from Ares and to render it "Warlike." 
It is used of Athena in three oaths of alliance suggestive of the 
martial character of the goddess. 288 The Athenians built a 
temple to Athena 'Kpeta at Plataea, constructed from the 
spoils of Marathon. 289 After his acquittal on the Areopagus 
Orestes is said to have dedicated an altar to Athena 'Apeta. 290 
In this the reference is evidently to the name of the hill on 
which the court sat, which the Greeks themselves, however 
mistaken they may have been in their etymology, certainly 
connected with Ares. 291 These instances of the use of the 
epithet favour the idea that it was derived from the name of 
Ares. It may be argued that Aphrodite 'A/jei'a was a type of 
the goddess conceived as guardian of the state. In this 
aspect she was more frequently worshipped at Sparta than 
elsewhere in Greece. The probabilities are that she was 

285 Arnob. Adv. Nat. 4. 25. 

285 Plut. Mulier. Virt. 5. Herodotus refers to the story, but not explicitly 
(3. 76-83). Pausanias mentions the exploit, but does not speak of Ares (2. 20, 8). 

287 Lactant. De Falsa Relig. 1. 20. Cf. Paus. 3. 17, 5. 

288 C. I. A. 2. 333; C. I. G. 3137; Frankel, Inschr. v. Perg. 1. 13. 

289 Paus. 9. 4, 1. 

290 Paus. 1. 28, 5. 

291 In ancient literature the word Areopagus is always derived from Ares. 



62 



represented armed. 292 This political goddess of Sparta was 
the Oriental Aphrodite, called Urania. The fact that one 
group of armed women gave special honour to Ares, another 
to Aphrodite *Kpe(a, is of importance to the investigation. 
The hint that the two deities were in some way associated 
suggests connection between Ares and the Anatolian cult of 
the warlike Mother whom the Amazons worshipped. 

It would seem that the connection between Ares and the 
Warlike Aphrodite was not slight. At Thebes the joint cult 
of the two as a conjugal pair was established at an early date, 293 
and their union was said to have given rise to the Cadmean 
family and thence to Dionysus. Through marriage with 
Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, Cadmus obtained 
the throne, and from the teeth of the serpent sacred to Ares 
he raised up the famous crop of warriors. 294 Tiimpel 295 
believes that the joint cult of Ares and Aphrodite originated 
at Thebes, and that from this city it spread through Greece, 
acquiring prominence in Attica and Arcadia. He finds the 
goddess to be the Oriental Urania, yet, strangely enough, he is 
unwilling to believe that she was conceived as an armed god- 
dess in the earliest times at Thebes. 

In Laconia, where Warlike Aphrodite, or Urania, was 
specially reverenced, the cult of Ares was more dignified and 
apparently more ancient than in other parts of Greece. 
Epicharmus is said to have claimed the deity as a Spartan. 296 
Under the name Enyalius he was worshipped by the Spartan 
ephebes. 297 Each of the two bands into which the youths were 

Cf. Paus. 3. 23, 1; C. I. G. 3. p. 683, 1444; Antipater, A. A. O. 176. 

293 In the Aeschylean Septem the Thebans call upon Ares and Cypris as the 
ancestors of their race (125-129). 

294 On the marriage of Ares and Harmonia v. Hesiod, Theog. 933 ff . Cf. the 
stock genealogy in the Bacchae of Euripides. 

296 Tiimpel, Ares u. Aphrodite, Fleckeisen's Jahrbiicher, Suppl. 1 (1880), 
pp. 641-754. 

296 Arnobius, Adv. Nat. 4. 25. 

297 Paus. 3. 14, 10; 3. 20, 2. 



63 



divided sacrificed a puppy to him, performing the ceremony 
at night in the Phoebaeum near Therapne. The ritual bears 
throughout the marks of primitive times. The most striking 
detail is the sacrifice of dogs, in mentioning which Pausanias 
remarks that he knows of only one other instance, namely, 
to Enodia, or Hecate, at Colophon. There are, however, 
other records of the practice, 298 in which it is noteworthy that 
the custom belongs to the worship of Hecate. Ares was 
worshipped under his own name at Therapne in a temple which 
Pausanias 299 describes as one of the earliest monuments in the 
region. The cult legend was that the image was brought from 
Colchis by the Dioscuri. The god had a strange epithet, 
Theritas, supposedly derived from Thero, the name of his 
nurse. Pausanias is so dissatisfied with this etymology that 
he suggests that the word was learned from the Colchians and 
was unintelligible to the Greeks. Wide 300 states a plausible 
hypothesis, that the cult was of Boeotian origin, basing his 
theory on the affiliations of the word Theritas. It may, 
however, have been a very early indigenous cult, for Therapne 
was evidently an important pre-Dorian site, as excavations 
have proved. 301 Here the Dioscuri received special honours, 
and Helen was worshipped from old times as a nature god- 
dess. 302 Pausanias 303 was told that the town was named from 
a daughter of Lelex. It is possible to infer that the cult 
of Ares Theritas, in which the temple was one of the oldest 
monuments in a region where pre-Dorian influence was 
strong, was "Lelegian." The people who established it 
would thus be akin to the Curetes of Aetolia and Acarnania. 
The connection with the Dioscuri favours the theory. 304 

298 Rouse collects the examples, Greek Votive Offerings, p. 298, n. 9. 
298 Paus. 3. 19, 7-9. 

300 S. Wide, Lakonische Kulte, pp. 149 £f. 

301 British School Annual, 15 (1908-09), pp. 108-157; 16 (1909-10), pp. 4-11. 

302 Cf. Btsh. Sch. Annual, I c; Frazer, Paus. 2. pp. 358-359. 
3 ° 3 Paus. 3. 19, 9. 

3 ° 4 V. ch. IV, p. 55. 



64 



There are two other examples of the Laconian worship of 
Ares. As Enyalius 305 he had a statue at Sparta near the 
Dromos, which represented him in fetters. In Ancient Village, 
a hamlet near Geronthrae, he had a sacred grove and temple. 
Here there was an annual festival from which women were 
excluded. 306 

It is, on the whole, safe to conclude that in Laconia Ares 
was revered in early times. The cult may have been indig- 
enous among the pre-Dorians, or it may have been an importa- 
tion from Boeotia, where he was worshipped with Aphrodite. 
Possibly the Fettered Ares of Sparta should be connected with 
a Fettered Aphrodite 307 in the same city. The two types may 
have given rise to a tale like that of Arcadia, of the servitude 
of Ares, 308 and the "lay of Demodocus" in the Odyssey could 
be referred to some such myth. Traditions of armed women in 
Tegea and in Sparta serve to connect Ares in Arcadia with 
Aphrodite 'Apeta in Sparta. 

There are not many traces of the cult of Ares elsewhere 
in Greece. The mythical genealogies of northern Greece 
associated him with Minyan Orchomenus, 309 Minyan Thes- 
saly, 310 Curetis, 311 and Aetolia. 312 Mention has already been 
made of Thebes. At Athens 313 he was said to have been the 
father of Alcippe by Aglaurus, a primitive goddess. In the 
Peloponnese he was connected by genealogical legends with 

305 Paus. 3, 15, 7. 

306 Paus. 3. 22, 7-8. 
3 ° 7 Paus. 3. 15, 11. 
3 ° 8 V. n. 285. 

309 Ascalaphus and Ialmenus of Orchomenus, sons of Ares by Astyoche: 
Iliad, 2. 511-515; 9. 82; 13. 518; Paus. 9. 37, 7. 

310 Phlegyas of Thessaly, son of Ares by Chryse of Orchomenus: Paus. 9. 36, 
1-4. 

311 Evenus and Thestius, sons of Ares by Demonice: Apollod. 1. 7, 6. 

312 Meleager, son of Ares, rather than Oeneus, by Althaea: Apollod. 1. 8, 1; 
Eur. Meleager, Fr. 1. 

313 Paus. 1. 21, 4; Mar. Par., C. I. G. 2374, 5. 



65 



Tegea, 314 Elis, 315 and Tritea in Achaea. 316 It is impossible to 
give much weight to such myths unsupported by further 
evidence, inasmuch as there was a tendency among Greek 
writers of all times to consider any famous warrior of the 
heroic age a son of Ares. The statement applies also to war- 
like races like the Phlegyae, mentioned by Homer and other 
poets. 

This investigation of the worship of Ares in Greece proper 
yields two important results: first, it tends to indicate that 
the god was worshipped in primitive times; secondly, in the 
relation between the cult of Ares and that of the Oriental 
Aphrodite at an early date in Thebes, and in the hints of a 
similar connection in Arcadia and Laconia, there is the sug- 
gestion of contact with the Amazons, who worshipped a god- 
dess resembling this Aphrodite. This raises the question 
whether the period may be determined in which the joint cult 
originated in Greek lands. 

Farnell 317 conjectures that at Thebes the Oriental goddess 
was brought from the east by the "Cadmeans," while Ares 
was an ancient god of the land. He believes that "by the 
fiction of a marriage" her cult was reconciled to the older 
worship. The hostility of Cadmus toward the sacred serpent 
of Ares and the wrath of the god against the hero are legendary 
details which support some such theory as this. Cadmus 
seems to have been a late comer, for he is not mentioned in 
the Homeric poems, where Amphion and Zethus are named as 
the founders of Thebes. 318 It looks as if in Elis also a form of 
the Oriental Aphrodite was reconciled with an indigenous cult 

314 Aeropus of Tegea, son of Ares by Aerope: v. supra, p. 60. 

315 Oenomaiis, reputed son of Ares by Harpina: Paus. 5. 22, 6. 

316 Melanippus, oecist of Tritea, son of Ares: Paus. 7. 22, 8. There was a 
Theban Melanippus, famous as a warrior at the time of the first attack on Thebes 
(Paus. 9. 18, 1). There was also a Melanippus at Patrae in Achaea, who with 
his love Comaetho was sacrificed to Artemis Triclaria (Paus. 7. 19, 2-5). 

317 Farnell, op. ext. 2. p. 623. 

318 Odyssey, 11. 262. 



66 



of Ares. Here the genealogical myth is not the only evidence 
for the worship of Ares; an altar to Ares in the race-course at 
Olympia attests the cult. 319 By the legend Pelops married 
Hippodamia, granddaughter to Ares. Hesychius 320 identifies 
her with Aphrodite, and Pelops, like Cadmus, was conceived 
as coming from the east. 321 The parallel is practically exact. 
In the case of Pelops the legends which connect him with 
Lydia and Paphlagonia are more plausibly interpreted as 
reflexes of Hellenic settlement in Asia Minor than as the record 
of the planting of an Asiatic colony near Olympia. 322 There- 
fore the cult of Aphrodite-Hippodamia would seem to have 
come into Elis by means of religious influence flowing back 
from the stream of emigration to the east. Thus the Elean 
parallel would be of service to Farnell's argument. The 
Attic myth of Theseus tends, however, to support the opposite 
theory. This saga certainly preserved the memory of the 
predominance of Crete in the Aegean. 323 Thus Aphrodite- 
Ariadne probably belonged to the pre-Hellenic inhabitants of 
Attica. It may be stated as an hypothesis that Ares was also 
worshipped in very early times at Athens. The evidence is 
this: his connection with Aglaurus, who seems to have been a 
primitive goddess; 324 the invocation of Ares and Enyalius in 
the ephebes' oath, which associates him with Aglaurus, the 
Attic Charites, and Hegemone; 325 the well established cult of 
Ares in the fifth century on the lower slopes of the Areopagus. 326 
The association with Hegemone is of special value, inasmuch 
as the epithet belongs to Aphrodite and to an Artemis similar 
to Astrateia. 

319 Paus. 5. 15, 6. 

320 Hesychius s.v. 

321 Cf. Paus. 5. 13, 7. 

322 The name Pelops first appears in the Cypria (Schol. Pind. Nem. 10. 114). 

323 V. supra, p. 59. 

324 V. supra, n. 313. 

325 V. supra, ch. IV, p. 47. 

326 Judeich, op. ext. p. 311. 



67 



The only direct information so far given concerning the 
worship of Ares by the Amazons comes from Athens. 327 
Therefore it is reasonable to lay stress on the legend of the 
Oriental Aphrodite in this state. 328 Yet we have no explicit 
statement that she was related to Ares in his capacity of patron 
of the Amazons. The nearest approach to a solution of the 
problem is possibly to be found in the ancient association 
between Ares and Enyo. 329 Enyo was apparently identified 
with the armed goddess of Cappadpcia who was known as 
Ma, who, in turn, was identified with Cybele as Mother of 
the Gods. 330 Aphrodite-Ariadne and the Armed Aphrodite 
are in a measure forms of the Mother. Hence by an equation 
Aphrodite under these two types becomes identical with Enyo, 
the companion of Ares. 

The evidence thus far gathered for a relation between Ares 
and the Amazons may be stated. (1) Aeschylus mentions 
their habitual worship of this god while they were besieging 
Athens; (2) Plutarch represents Theseus at this time sacri- 
ficing to Phobus, son of Ares; (3) Pausanias describes the 
temple of Ares at Troezen as a trophy of the victory of Theseus 
over the Amazons; (4) in the association between Ares and 
Aphrodite in several places, in similar association between 
Ares and Enyo, and in the identification both of this Aphrodite 
and of Enyo with the Mother whom the Amazons worshipped, 
there are obscure indications of his belonging to the rites of 
the Mother; (5) there are fairly good reasons for holding that 
Ares was an early, or pre-Hellenic god. According to this 
evidence it is presumable that the connection between Ares 
and the Amazons was indirect rather than direct. A striking 

'"Aeschyl. I. c. {Eum. 685-690). 

328 Tumpel {op. cit.) finds traces of the Theban cult of Ares and Aphrodite 
in Attica. He does not take into consideration the connections of the legend of 
Ariadne. 

«» Iliad, 5. 592. 

330 V. supra, ch. II, p. 27, n. 119. 



68 



fact should be added. Wherever there were memorials of the 
Amazons in Greece — at Athens, Troezen, Megara and Chae- 
ronea in Boeotia, Chalcis in Euboea, 331 Thessaly 332 — there are 
some indications in each canton that the cult of Ares was there 
in early times. 

There are two other sets of records which belong to the 
discussion of the cult of Ares in its relation to the Amazons. 
Of these the first is a small group of ancient references to the 
Amazons as children of Ares. Euripides 333 terms them 
'A/)eta9 /eo/>a?, a phrase echoed in the Latin Mavortia applied 
to one of them. 334 The term is of no value toward establishing 
a theory of a cult relation with Ares, for it as colourless as are 
the familiar epic phrases, of 09 "Aprjos and Oepdirovre^ "Aprjos, 
applied to warriors. Elsewhere, however, the Amazons are 
conceived as actually daughters of the god. The stock gene- 
alogy assigned to the race made them the children of Ares and 
Harmonia, 335 while Otrere is individually named as the child 
of these parents. 336 Harmonia's name is easily associated 
with that of Ares, since in Theban legends she appears as his 
daughter. It is therefore tempting to see in the mother of 
the race the goddess Aphrodite. But it is impossible to follow 
out the clue. The relationship is manifestly a stereotyped one, 

331 The early folk of Chalcis in Euboea seem to have been akin to the Leleges 
and Abantes of Boeotia. There were connections also with Chalcis of the Curetes 
in Aetolia. Cf. Iliad, 2. 536 ff.; Paus. 5. 22, 3^1; 9. 5, 1; 10. 35, 5. The most 
important connection here is that with Boeotia, where the worship of Ares 
certainly belonged. It is a curious fact that Chalcodon, the great Homeric 
hero of Euboea {Iliad, 2. 541), had an heroum at Athens in the plain where 
there were many memorials of the Amazons (Plut. Thes. 27, 3). 

332 The genealogies of Thessaly are worth considering, because they show 
the persistent tradition of relationship between the primitive folk of this canton 
and Boeotia. V. n. 310. 

333 Eur. Here. Fur. Ft. 413. 

334 Val. Flacc. 5. 90. 

335 Yot references v. n. 10. 

336 Ap. Rh. 2. 389; Schol. Tzetz. Post-Horn. 8. 189; Schol. Ap. Rh. 2. 1032; 
Hyg. Fab. 30, 112, 163, 223, 225. 



69 



manufactured by logographers. Furthermore, the mother 
is not consistently called Harmonia. At times she appears as 
Armenia, 337 from which it may be inferred that the name of the 
mother of the Amazons came from the study of geography, and 
that Harmonia's crept in as a corruption. Arctinus 338 called 
Penthesilea a Thracian and the daughter of Ares. Possibly 
the theory that the race in general were children of Ares may 
have originated thus, or in some other poem of the Cycle. 
If the Amazons had not been conspicuously warriors, and if 
it were not at first sight a figure of speech to term a band 
of women the children of the war-god, it would be easier to 
judge whether these statements are poetical or representations 
of the view of genealogists. 

The reference to Thrace is more valuable. Herodotus 339 
shows that the cult of Ares was important here, for he says 
that the Thracians worshipped three gods, Ares, Dionysus, and 
Artemis. As it has been said, the sacrifice of dogs in the 
Spartan ritual of Enyalius finds its only parallels in the rites 
of Thracian Hecate. 340 Many modern authorities 341 believe 
that the cult of Ares was of Thracian origin. 342 The rites of 
Dionysus, to whom he was akin, 343 belong also to the orgiastic 
ceremonies of Phrygia. In general, as it has been noted, there 
is striking similarity between the cults of Phrygia and those 
of Thrace. This comes out strongly in the worship of the 
Mother. It is noteworthy that the custom of sacrificing dogs, 
a conspicuous and difficult feature in the rites of Ares and also 

337 The word appears in Pherecydes, but, because the corruption may be a 
scribe's error, no argument can be based on this. 
33 s V. ch. I, p. 3. 
33 » Herod. 5. 7. 

340 V. supra, pp. 26, 63. 

341 Among them are Miss Harrison (Proleg. pp. 375-379) ; Ttimpel (op. cit. 
p. 662) ; Farnell (op. cit. ch. on Ares) , who states the theory tentatively. 

342 Sophocles held this view (ap. Arnob. Adv. Nat. I. c). Cf. St. Basil, who 
gives 'Apei'a as the old name of Thrace (s.v. ' Apeia). 

343 J. E. Harrison, Proleg. I. c. 



70 



of Hecate, belonged to the Carian worship of Ares. 344 It 
should be added that at Lagina in Caria the orgiastic worship 
of Hecate was established with the peculiar characteristic of 
the cult of Cybele at Pessinus and of Artemis at Ephesus. 345 
Thus from all sides the theory finds support that the cult of 
Ares should be classed as Thracian-Phrygian and connected 
with that of the Mother. The inference is that the pre- 
Hellenic Ares of the Greek mainland was a god of the people 
who had a pre-historic culture allied to the "Minoan." 

Apollonius Rhodius 346 represents the Amazons engaged in a 
ritual as strange as the sacrifice of dogs which suggests Thrace 
and Caria. He relates that on "Ares island" in Pontus they 
sacrificed horses in the temple of Ares. An obscure record of 
this is apparently preserved by the Scholiast on a line in the 
Lysistrata of Aristophanes. 347 The scholium mentions no 
deity by name; it merely comments on the legend that Ama- 
zons sacrificed horses. Ares is not elsewhere than in the 
passage from Apollonius named as a god thus worshipped, and 
possibly here, even in the temple of Ares, the ritual is to be 
referred rather to the worship of Cybele under baetylic form 
than to that of Ares. The victim was a rare one among the 
Greeks, belonging to Apollo, Helios, the wind-gods, and 
especially to Poseidon. It may be that the words of Apol- 
lonius imply a connection between the cult of Ares and that of 
Poseidon Hippius. At Troezen the temple of Ares gave access 
to the Genethlium, probably a shrine of Poseidon; 348 at Athens 
there was the story of the murder of Halirrhothius, son of 
Poseidon; 349 at Olympia the altar of Ares was dedicated to 

844 Arnob. I. c. (Adv. Nat 4. 25). 
34S V. supra, n. 77. 

846 Ap. Rh. 2. 1179; cf. 2. 387. V. supra, n. 66. 

S4T Aristoph. Lys. 191. Undue importance has been given to the scholium 
by Preller- Robert (p. 343, n. 5), but, on the other hand, Farnell, in bringing 
forward this criticism, fails to give due weight to the quotation from Apollonius. 

»« V. supra, nn. 271, 272. 

349 Paus. 1. 21, 4; 1. 28, 5. 



71 



Ares Hippius. 350 The cult of Poseidon Hippius at Athens 
seems to have been in some way connected with that of the 
pre-Ionic Semnae, or Eumenides, both at Colonus Hippius 
and on the Areopagus. 351 Possibly the Troezenian legend of 
the death of Hippolytus suggests jealousy between Ares, a 
divinity of the Amazons, and Poseidon, the reputed father of 
Theseus. The ritual of horse sacrifice among the Amazons 
may be the basis of the tradition that they were skilful horse- 
women. 

The sacrifice of horses to Ares is recorded as a custom of the 
Scythians, 352 a people who apparently associated the horse 
with funerary oblations. 353 

The best example of this sacrifice in the rites of the war-god 
comes from Rome, 354 where on October fifteenth there was an 
annual race of bigae in the Campus Martius, after which the 
near horse of the winning pair was sacrificed to Mars, and his 
blood was allowed to drip on the hearth of the Regia. Prob- 
ably the blood of this sacrifice was afterwards mixed with the 
ingredients of the sacred cakes. The rite evidently was in 
honour of Mars as a deity of fertility. He was undoubtedly 
worshipped by the primitive Romans in this capacity as well 
as in that of warrior. 355 

Apparently then the poetic legend of the Amazons' offering 
horses to Ares presents him in a very primitive aspect with 
the suggestion that he was a chthonic deity of fertility. As 
warrior and giver of increase he resembles Apollo Carneiis. 
A scholium 356 furnishes information which strengthens the 
supposition that he was in his primitive form a nature god. 
This tells of an obsolete custom in time of war, by which the 

360 Paus. 5. 15, 6. 

351 Harrison and Verrall, Myth, and Mons. p. 601. 

352 Arnob. Adv. Nat. 4. 25. On Scythian Ares cf. Herod. 4. 62. 

353 Cf. sacrifice of horses in Scythian tumuli, Arch. Am. 1910, 195-244. 

354 Warde Fowler, Lustratio, pp. 186 ff. 

355 Warde Fowler, op. cit. and J. E. Harrison, Btsh. Sch. Annual, 1908-09, 
pp. 331 ff. 

35f > Schol. Eur. Phoen. 1186. 



72 



signal for attack was given by priests of Ares called irvp^opoi, 
who hurled lighted torches between the two armies. This 
suggests the orgiastic cults of Thrace and Phrygia, in which the 
torch was a prominent feature. It belonged also to the cere- 
monies of fire in honour of Mars in primitive Rome. 357 

Even in ancient times there were conflicting theories con- 
cerning the provenience of the cult of Ares. Arnobius 358 
says: "Quis Spartanum fuisse Martem (prodidit)? Non 
Epicharmus auctor vester? Quis is Thraciae finibus pro- 
creatum? Non Sophocles Atticus cunctis consentientibus 
theatris? Quis mensibus in Arcadia tribus et decern vinctum? 
Quis ei canes ab Caribus, quis ab Scythibus asinos immolari? 
Nonne principaliter cum ceteris Apollodorus?" The general 
tendency of the evidence is in the direction of the theory that 
Ares was an ancient god of the Thracians, of the pre-Hellenic 
peoples of Greece, and of the races who worshipped the Mother 
in Asia Minor and Crete. 

As a god whom the Amazons worshipped he does not appear 
to have been as important as the Mother. The records of 
his association with them are few and confused. The best 
evidence is doubtless that furnished by the extant accounts of 
the saga of Theseus and the Amazons, to which Ares belongs, 
although it is not possible to define his position. The saga 
is of special importance in being analogous to the Ephesian 
tales of Heracles and Dionysus. 

357 J. E. Harrison, Btsh. Sch. Ann. I. c. On chthonic Ares cf. Artemid. 
Oneirocr. 2. 34. 

358 Arnobius, I. c. (Adv. Nat. 4. 25). 



CONCLUSION 



The Amazons were votaries of Cybele, Artemis under the 
surnames Ephesia, Tauropolos, Lyceia, and Astrateia, Apollo 
called Amazonian, and Ares. The striking feature of the list 
is the homogeneity of its components. This is no fortuitous 
circumstance, for the authors from whom it has been compiled 
are many, and they belong to widely separated generations. 
The list represents classical opinion, both Greek and Latin, 
on the nature of the divinities whom the Amazons were con- 
ceived to have served. It must be concluded that these 
women were associated with the cults of primitive deities of 
fertility and of war, among whom a Woman was the chief 
figure, and of whom the rites were orgiastic. In historical 
times such cults may be classed as Thracian-Phrygian, and 
they are to be referred to the people who inherited both the 
blood and the spiritual traditions of the great pre-historic 
civilisation of the Aegean basin, of which the brilliant centre 
seems to have been Crete. 

The theories concerning the Amazons which have com- 
manded most respect are three: (1) that the tradition arose 
from memories of the raids of warlike women of the Cim- 
merians and kindred peoples, who in early times forced their 
way into Asia Minor from the north; (2) that the Amazons 
were originally the warrior-priestesses, or hieroduli, of the 
Hittite-Cappadocian Ma, and that the Hittites passed on- 
legends about them to the people of Lycia, Lydia, and adjoin- 
ing lands; (3) that the tradition of the Amazons was grounded 
on the mistaken notion, deeply rooted among the Greeks, 
that beardlessness is a sure indication of female sex, whence 
they failed to recognise as men certain warriors who appeared 
at an early date as foes of the people of Asia Minor. To the 

v 73 



74 



first 359 of these it is to be objected — irrespective of evidence 
furnished by the cults with which the Amazons were associ- 
ated — that a northern home beyond the Euxine was assigned 
to the race by Aeschylus and Herodotus, but that the oldest 
records of the Greeks, the Homeric poems, place them near 
Lycia and Phrygia. In this region the tradition struck down 
into the soil, as shown by the tales of many cities claiming the 
Amazons as their founders. To the second 360 it must be 
replied that Ma is nowhere named in direct connection with 
the Amazons, although she resembles in a general way the 
female deities whom they were said to have worshipped. 
Furthermore, in the records of her rites there is no hint of 
armed hieroduli. 361 And, still further, the evidence on which 
the assumption rests that the Hittite kingdom was one of 
great importance and influence is not strong. The last 
theory 362 is very interesting, because it is novel and daring, 
and also because it draws attention to certain curious facts 
usually overlooked by anthropologists. But as a foundation 
for the persistent tradition of the Amazons as armed women 
it is too slight in structure. 

359 On the theory v. O. Klugmann, Philologus, 30 (1870), pp. 524-556. Stoll 
inclines to this theory, as shown by his article in Pauly's Realenc. s.v. Klugmann. 
Other advocates are Freret, Memoire de Vacad. d'inscr. 21. pp. 106 ff.; Welcker, 
Ep. Cycl. 2. pp. 200 ff. It is sympathetically treated in Roscher's Lexikon, 
s.v. Amazonen. Farnell seems inclined to accept it, although he does not ex- 
plicitly advance an opinion. In one part of his work {op. cit. 5. p. 406) he takes 
the negative position that "the Amazon tradition is sporadic in Greece and per- 
plexes the ethnographer and the student of religion," yet elsewhere (2. p. 482) 
he makes the close connection between Ephesian Artemis and the Amazons 
the basis of the suggestion that northern Asia Minor was perhaps the home of 
the cult. 

360 A. H. Sayce is the chief advocate of the importance of the Hittite kindgom. 
His most recent remarks on the Amazons are in Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. 1910, 
pp. 25-26. They are supported by A. J. Reinach, Rev. Arch. 1910, pp. 280-282. 
Cf. Leonhard, Hettiter u. Amazonen, 1911. 

361 This objection is made by Farnell, op. cit. 5. p. 406. 

362 This is the theory of Myres in Anthropology and the Classics, pp. 138 ff. 
Farnell is more satisfied with this than with the hieroduli theory {op. cit. 5. 
p. 406). 



75 



The tradition, interpreted in the light of evidence furnished 
by the cults which they are supposed to have practised, seems 
to have originated among the people who built up the pre- 
historic civilisation of the Aegean, of which the finished 
product was apparently "Minoan" culture. In their warlike 
character the Amazons are reflexes of the Woman whom they 
worshipped. Like the Warrior Goddess of Asia Minor they 
carry the battle-axe, and in this they are shown to be closely 
related to the religion of pre-historic Crete, of which the 
weapon is the conspicuous symbol. Their other weapon, the 
bow, is also Cretan. 363 It is the attribute of the Asiatic-Cretan 
Apollo whom they seem to have revered. They belong to the 
early matriarchate, which left traces in Caria and Lycia. 364 
In Greece itself, even in Laconia, the canton belonging to the 
fiercest of the Hellenic invaders who introduced the patri- 
archate, women enjoyed unusual freedom in Greek times, and 
here there were stories of their having borne arms for their 
country. There were similar tales at Argos and in Arcadia, 
and at the Olympian Heraeum there was a footrace of maidens 
in honour of Hippodamia. 365 These are doubtless vestiges of 
the matriarchate of the pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece.) 
They suggest many comparisons with the Amazon tradition. 
The legend of Atalanta offers similar parallels to the story 
of the Amazons in its pleasing aspect. Its darker side, which 
the older Greeks emphasised, is reflected in the tale of the 
Lemnian women who murdered their husbands. 366 These were 
Myrina's children and descendants of Dionysus. The energy 
of this ancient matriarchal organisation is shown in the idea 
of confusion of sex which belonged to the cults of Cybele and 
Ephesian Artemis in historical times. The idea is prominent 

36 3 Paus. 1. 23, 4. 

364 Cf. Myres, op. ext. pp. 153 ff. 
Paus. 5. 16, 1 ff. 

366 Apollod. 1. 9, 3. At Lemnos there were Corybantic rites of Bendis (Strabo, 
p. 466). 



76 



in the legends of the Amazons, as they touch religion. At 
Ephesus they were connected with Dionysus and Heracles, 
to both of whom an effeminate character belonged. Their 
place in state cult at Athens has the same implications. 

We may believe then that the tradition of the Amazons 
preserves memories of a time when women held the important 
place in state and religion in Aegean lands, and that they 
) reflect the goddess of this civilisation. It is noteworthy that 
the earliest writings of the Greeks concerning them show them 
in that part of Asia Minor where the rites of the Mother 
throughout ancient times menaced the reason of her wor- 
shippers. The troop of maenads who followed Dionysus were 
like the Amazons, but the clue to their kinship was easily 
lost. 367 The relation between the Amazons and the Anatolian 
cults was practically obliterated, whereas maenads were 
introduced into Greek religion after many generations had 
altered the first form of orgiastic worship. Moreover, the 
deity of the maenads, who was earlier only the paredros of 
the Woman, had become an Olympian. 

Greek travellers of the age of Herodotus naturally inferred 
that they had discovered the Amazons in the regions of 
Scythia and Libya where armed women were said to fight in 
the ranks with men. Even before this time the traditional 
home of the race had been placed further and further eastward, 
as Greek colonists failed to find Amazons in Lydia, Phrygia, 
Lycia, and along the southern shore of the Euxine. Yet, 
granted the origin of the Amazon tradition among the "Min- 
oans" and their kindred, it is at present impossible to say that 
these pre-historic races had no affiliations with Scythians, 
Libyans, and Hittites. 

367 The germ of the thought is in R. Y. Tyrrell's Preface to his edition of the 
Bacchae of Euripides. V. p. LXXXIII (ed. 1906). 



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